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Al Rhodes said his team is better now than he thought it would be.
Fred Fields talked of his dislike for jamborees.
And Gregg Sciarra ... well, the last thing Sciarra said? "We have a lot of room for improvement."
These were local coaches reactions after Saturday's Warsaw Jamboree, the last jamboree that will be played. Teams will play in scrimmages starting next year.
First Quarter: Warsaw 18, Tippecanoe Valley 8
Even without Tom Krizmanich, even without P.J. Wiley, even without Tyler Charlton, the Warsaw Tigers still looked like the basketball team to beat, at least on this night.
Without Jeff Brown, without Darren Parker, without Nick Stutzman, Tippecanoe Valley showed how much it could still use those three players.
The Warsaw trio started and graduated last year. Krizmanich plays at Notre Dame now. Still, Warsaw appears to have reloaded.
The Tigers may not have found that standout player yet but what they discovered is they possibly have 10 starters. Jason Alspaugh, Andy Plank and Chris Wiggins started in the backcourt, while Luke Reed and Steve Siebenmorgen started in the frontcourt. Rhodes played 10 players. Seven scored. All contributed at least one assist, point, rebound or steal.
"We have felt our success is how well we blend together a team from three grades," Rhodes said. "We have three sophomores, two juniors and five seniors in our top 10."
While the Tigers' winning ways continued with this new group, the Tigers won both quarters, Warsaw's biggest change arguably occurred off the court. The regimented Rhodes, who had worn a tie with basketballs on it every game the last three years, turned that one in for a different one with no apparent basketball theme.
And yes, it will be worn every basketball game.
"This happens to be one my wife, Kathy, likes very much," he said. "That's why we changed it. We've worn the same uniforms ever since I've been head coach. Once I make a commitment to something in any given year, it stays that way."
Like Warsaw, Valley lost three starters, Brown, Parker and Stutzman, to graduation. Unlike Warsaw, the Vikings struggled. Shooting? They made 3 of 11 field goals. Free throws? They hit 2 of 6. Turnovers? They had six.
"We're inexperienced," Sciarra said. "We didn't come in thinking we were going to put in 20 points. We wanted to see what we could do in our basic offensive set. Defensively, we wanted to see if we could do our jobs in our base-man defense.
"We saw some good. We saw some bad."
For Valley, this also marked the debut of 6-9 foreign exchange student Maurice Looman. The big man showed signs of a soft shooting touch. He also showed a penchant for wanting to dribble the basketball, which led to some turnovers.
"He's from the Netherlands," Sciarra said. "We've had him for a couple weeks, and that's the only basketball we've gotten to talk to him. He's kind of used to European rules. Everything's new to him."
Second Quarter: Wawasee 24, Tippecanoe Valley 11
The Wawasee Warriors were in late-season form when it came to taking care of the basketball. They played more than four minutes before they had their first turnover.
The Warriors displayed a combination of lightning quick guards, Jay Haugh and Jared Mahnensmith, to go along with an active frontcourt that crashed the boards.
Haugh led Wawasee with eight points, and the Warriors outrebounded Valley 10-4. The Warriors made 9 of 17 field goals. Four of them were layups.
The Vikings committed eight turnovers and made 3 of 8 free throws. Jarvis Shepherd came off the bench to lead them with five points.
"You look at the scores and think, are you disappointed?" Sciarra said. "No. Sure, you'd like to be up. The jamboree is that you get to see where you stack up, and you get to see where you can improve at. At times we were outmuscled. At times we didn't hit the floor when we should have. At times we didn't hit free throws. At times we weren't aggressive.
"All things can be improved on as the year goes by. We had two pretty good teams we were playing. We have a long, long way to go."
Third Quarter: Whitko 17, Wawasee 15
Games that go on won-loss records haven't been played yet, and already there was a buzzer-beating shot. Whitko forward Jeff Martin won the game when he scored his only two points as time ran off the clock to give the Wildcats the win.
The jamboree marked Fred Fields' debut as Whitko basketball coach.
"First of all, I don't like jamborees," he said. "I hate to drive 42 minutes for 16 minutes of basketball when I could have had another had a 2 1/2 hour session today."
Like Wawasee, the Wildcats have veteran guards to go along with a solid frontcourt that has five players 6-foot-4 or taller. The guards got the ball inside, where 6-4 senior forward Jeremiah Laws scored nine points on 4-of-4 shooting.
"Sometimes people say they want to spread the offense around," Fields said. "That's a terrible phrase. We don't spread it around. We're going to go to the No. 1 priority and keep going there until the other team changes."
The Warriors received some bad luck when Haugh turned his ankle on the last play of Wawasee's last quarter.
Mahnensmith led Wawasee with five points.
Fourth Quarter: Warsaw 24, Whitko 16
This one turned into everything short of a rugby scrum. The teams combined for 20 fouls and 27 free throw attempts.
Just how deep are the Tigers? They started their five reserves from the opening quarter Rob Kesler, Jason Barrett, Lucas Schroeder in the backcourt and Chris Hill and Zach Nelson in the frontcourt. All they did was get the Tigers off to an 11-3 lead. Schroeder triggered the Tigers by scoring their first seven points. Eleventh and 12th men Chris Rhodes and David Grossnickle came in and contributed. Rhodes scored four, and Grossnickle scored two.
"We're a little farther ahead than what I thought we'd be," Rhodes said. "I think we have to compliment our five seniors - Jason Alspaugh, Chris Hill, Andy Plank, Luke Reed and Lucas Schroeder on that. They set the tone the first day of practice. They kind of lifted the play of the underclassmen.
"Because of that, we've had two excellent weeks of practice. Can we beat teams with more experience, teams that return 20-point scorers? We'll just have to see. I think this team is going to try."
Backcourt mates Schipper and Ben Mohr led Whitko with four points each. Part of the problem this quarter, Fields said, was his team quit doing things that worked the previous quarter.
"The outside people missed getting (Laws) the ball seven times the second quarter," he said. "Sometimes, in some kids' minds, some things are too easy. They don't keep doing it. We need to keep doing it until they double down on the inside.
"Nothing changed. (Warsaw) wasn't making huge defensive adjustments. We just needed to keep going in there. Then hopefully we would have forced them to double a little bit, then we could have gotten good looks from the outside. We have a couple good three-point shooters. They didn't get any looks."
Even though Fields doesn't like jamborees, he acknowledged he would learn much about his team.
"It turned out to be a very valuable experience for us," he said. "Both teams were really getting out and attacking the ball. Nobody sat back in a passive zone. We can simulate that in practice. What we can't simulate is good, hard pressure. I thought for the most part, our kids took what was there. Our free-throw shooting is about as bad as it can ever be. Of all the mistakes we saw, 80 percent are very fixable.
"This videotape will be the most valuable tape we have all year. It will thrust us forward more than any other tape we look at."
FIRST QUARTER: WARSAW 18
TIPPECANOE VALLEY 8
Warsaw scoring - Jason Barrett 4, Lucas Schroeder 3, Steve Siebenmorgen 3, Jason Alspaugh 2, Andy Plank 2, Luke Reed 2, Chris Hill 2.
Tippecanoe Valley scoring - Eric Love 3, Brandon Eaton 3, Maurice Looman 2.
SECOND QUARTER: WAWASEE 24
TIPPECANOE VALLEY 11
Wawasee scoring - Jay Haugh 8, Jordan Bender 6, Brody Stipp 4, Jared Mahnensmith 2, Brad Brown 2, Chris Lambert 1, Justin Shilling 1.
Tippecanoe Valley scoring - Jarvis Shepherd 5, Scott Cooksey 4, JayDee Parker 2.
THIRD QUARTER: WHITKO 17
WAWASEE 15
Whitko scoring - Jeremiah Laws 9, Chad Schipper 4, Ben Mohr 2, Jeff Martin 2.
Wawasee scoring - Jared Mahnensmith 5, Brody Stipp 4, Justin Shilling 4, Jay Haugh 2.
FOURTH QUARTER: WARSAW 24
WHITKO 16
Warsaw scoring -ÊLucas Schroeder 7, Chris Rhodes 4, Luke Reed 4, Steve Siebenmorgen 3, David Grossnickle 2, Jason Alspaugh 2, Andy Plank 2.
Whitko scoring - Chad Schipper 4, Ben Mohr 4, Jeremiah Laws 3, J.R. Manuel 3, Kevin Miller 2.
