SYRACUSE - Following last year's 12-9 season, Wawasee High School boys basketball coach Phil Mishler seems to have more question marks than answers right now.
"We have a lot of sophomores on the team," the ninth-year Wawasee Warrior coach said. "Some of the guys have not even played on (the junior varsity). We're going to need to relearn the entire game. We're going to need to get a lot of mental toughness to prepare for the first game."Last season, the Warriors relied heavily on the half-court set, allowing Brandon Geiger to average 17.9 points and 7.8 rebounds a game. The set also allowed Chas Amadeo to average 9.2 points and 3.8 board a contest, but with both of those post players graduated, the Wawasee offense may look a bit different in the 2008-09 season.
"Our tallest player is (6-foot-1)," Mishler said. "We're really small and are really going to try to utilize our ball handling and passing."
The Warriors other loss to graduation came in the backcourt, where Brad Granger is now gone, while Mishler will also be without Michael Jenkins, a reserve last year who has moved into the Homestead school district.
On top of the absence of Granger, Mishler's still unsure if he'll have the services of senior Ross Stichter, his best shooter at 39 percent from behind the three-point arc.
Because of medical reasons, Stichter, last year's second-leading scorer at 12.8 points a game, is described as "doubtful" for the season.
With another player possibly gone from last year's team, Mishler is turning his attention to senior Wes Kaiser for some senior leadership on the court.
"Our returning experience is about two guys, and that's counting Ross Stichter," Mishler said. "We're going to put a lot of leadership on Wes Kaiser.
"Wes Kaiser is really important," he added. "He has to be smart all the time. He can't hang his head if he struggles on offense. He's just going to need to dig down and play good defense."
Kaiser was the Warriors' top assist man last year with three a game, while he averaged 5.4 points a game.
While Mishler will look to Kaiser for a solid year, he can't be the lone contributor for the Warriors in a tough Northern Lakes Conference.
"There's Warsaw and there's Goshen, who will be very good," Mishler said of the NLC. "Then there's Northridge, Elkhart Memorial, Plymouth and NorthWood. It's a season where pretty much everyone will have a shot at winning it."
If Wawasee's even going to compete with the top teams in the conference, Mishler will need his inexperienced guys to get baptized by fire.
"We're going to try to improve everyday and play as hard as we can," Mishler said.
Among the returning letterwinners joining Kaiser, and possibly Stichter, this year are seniors Grant Ruch and Dylan Ringler, while junior Keegan Beer and sophomores Trevor McKibben, Riley Stichter and Logan Hatfield should also see a lot of time on the court.
Other Wawasee reserves are sophomores Cody Blunk, Garly Windle, Ben Klaybor and freshman Jake Clark.
The Warriors get their first chance to see where they stack up Nov. 25 at home against Fairfield.
