The Lane Varsity Basketball team debuted Friday, Nov. 20 in the annual Green/Gold scrimmage. New eye-catching jerseys sporting green with the word “Indians” in cursive across the front capture the attitude and personality of this team.

The varsity game was a learning experience for all the players. Tough competition showed the team not only their strengths, but also their weaknesses. It marked the beginning to a season of hard work and expectations.

A young team, full of new players, but with a classic, competitive, hardworking look. The Boys Varsity team lost 10 seniors after last season’s city sweet sixteen run, but many players don’t seem to look at that as an issue.

“We’re gonna pick up where we left off; a lot of teams in our conference lost a lot of seniors too, and we have a lot of talent coming up from the freshman and sophomore levels,” Captain Marques Barnes, Div. 755, said. Barnes represents the fierce and competitive nature of this year’s team.

He said his goal is to put Lane Boys Hoops on the map. “This year hopefully we can win the Red North, get past the sweet sixteen for city and maybe make it to the elite eight and go further on to the final four and hopefully we can get some individual awards for our guys and get some recognition,” he said.

Barnes is not the only player with these large aspirations.

“I think we will stay competitive, not our best year but we will still be a force to be reckoned with in our conference,” Calvin Keyes, Div. 877, said.

The fact that they lost seniors, including four who signed letters of intent to play in college, proves to be a challenge for this year’s team.

“We will have growing pains. Losing 10 seniors is tough. I think we’ll face not having a lot of varsity experience,” Keyes said.

Starting point guard Dominic Coleman, Div. 665, confronts challenges found right away in the team’s opening Green and Gold game.

“We need to stay together, and not let our emotions get the best of us,” Coleman said. Tensions ran high throughout the game as offensive struggles hurt both teams and players became impatient. Coleman believes this issue can be helped by simply “being better.”

One thing that defines this team, both based on their comments, their goals, and their actions on the court is their competitiveness and their appetite to win.

“It will affect the team but I think a lot of the younger players will step up and fill those roles that are left vacant by seniors. It’s a year for competing,” Coleman said.

Coleman sees the team’s competitiveness on the court during practice.“There is never an easy day, and that is due in large part to the players who don’t play but who push us in practice. Like Michael Rojas, (Div. 775, point guard) he’s not a starter but he pushes me in practice every day, making sure I’m not messing up and being the best player that I can be.”

Relationships like this within the team are part of the family-like team chemistry that the Boys Basketball team is trying to build within the program.

Their mission statement is “We are family,” and the players seem to buy into this, which is building their confidence and competitiveness. Just as a brother wants to out-do his brother, teammates like Coleman and Rojas want to use each other to improve as players and as a team.

The chemistry of this year’s team is also in question after losing so many seniors last year. This year’s team is composed of one freshman, two sophomores, six juniors and seven seniors.

“No, age won’t affect it, because we all hang out a lot. A lot of us go to lunch together. We’ve adopted Zach (Kryztopik, Div. 878), Zach is always with us, Calvin is always with us and we’re trying to get Vuk (Djuric, Div. 974) into the mix too,” Barnes said.

Similarly Keyes said, “We’re a family. We have room to grow, but I love everybody on the team.”

This loving family mentality along with the competitiveness and desire that this year’s team possesses appears to be the reason why these guys believe they can be winners in a tough conference, despite a lack of prior varsity experience.

New jerseys may not be a vital difference-maker this season, but the attitudes of the younger players and the leadership of the older players may very well lead to another successful season for Lane Boys  Basketball.