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Bennett
Ready to Lead Orphan Basketball
The 2007-2008 Centralia Orphans
basketball season has begun with new head coach
Lee Bennett at the helm. Bennett joins the
Orphans after four years and one hundred wins at
Alton
High School
. A 1992 graduate of
Western
Illinois
University
, Bennett began his coaching career at
Avon
High School
in northern
Illinois
, winning seventeen games in his one and only
season there. He then went on to coach for two
seasons at Carlinville. A one-year stint and
twenty win season at Kinderhook West Pike
followed before Bennett served as an assistant
at
Quincy
University
for one year. He then took over at Dakota, where
he went 119-48 in his six years there before
moving on to
Alton
.
The Orphans will look to improve upon a
10-16 record from a year ago. They will begin
their season on Thanksgiving Day against
Quincy
at the Quincy Thanksgiving Tournament. When
asked what he was looking to do offensively,
Bennett explained, “We have to move the ball
until we get a shot that we have a good chance
of making. Hopefully, we won’t throw it away
or take a crazy shot before that. It might take
two seconds and one pass, or it might take many
seconds and many passes. Either way we want to
make sure we have a good shot each trip down the
floor because you have a much better chance of
making a good shot than you do of making a bad
shot.”
Centralia
will look to shut down opponents on the
defensive side of the ball. Bennett has
emphasized defense stating, “We want to guard
the basket, and we want to try to get them to
take a bad shot or turn the ball over. A lot of
times you have the people who have the
discipline and the intellect to do that. We want
to guard the basket, stay in position to
rebound, and try to make them take a mediocre
shot, and, of course, we don’t want to be the
guy doing that on the other end. The game cannot
only be a test of skill and endurance and speed
and size, but a test of discipline as well.”
Bennett expects to see everyone on the
team step up and do their part. “A lot of
times you may have a great player, so one guy
really takes over, or you might have a bunch of
bad players, so one guy takes over. I don’t
think we’re in either one of those situations.
Hopefully, there are multiple people that step
up different nights. That’s kind of how I see
it happening.”
There has been an increase in the work
ethic of the players. According to Bennett, it
is now much improved compared to where it was
during the summer. He said that while some
individuals are good workers, others need to
improve in that regard. “There’s just a
determination that comes when players are able
to finish off possessions, offensively and
defensively, all the way through without getting
weak and having to take a crazy shot, not quite
get to help in time, or not quite going up and
grabbing the rebound.”
While the team has made great strides
since the summer, there is still a long way to
go. Many areas still need improvement. “We
need to go out and knock down shots
consistently. Other than that, we’re learning
the new system, learning how we want to play
defense, learning how we want to play offense.
There’s ten times more to learn than anybody
who’s not a coach realizes. I think the
players are starting to figure that out and as
we continue to go, they will figure it out more
and more.”
Bennett stated that he has the same goal
coming into every season. “We have to do the
best we can. Same as every year, do the best we
can with the kids on our team. Hope that young
men grow as basketball players and people and
learn the value of discipline and work ethic.
That will correlate to success. Success, for one
group of boys, might be to win ten games.
Success, for another group of boys, might be to
win twenty-five games. Every group is different.
My ultimate goal every year is to see how good
we can get, how much discipline can we play
with, how much skill can we develop, how much
work ethic can we develop, how well can we get
smart enough to be able to play together
offensively and defensively. The better you do
that, the more games you win. Ultimately it’s
about trying to get good, trying to get better
and see how good you can get.”
Click
here to read Stile's interview with Coach JJ
DeMattei
Click
here to read Stile's interview with Coach Ryan
Blaha
Click
here to read Stile's interview with Golf Coach
John Sallee
Click
here to read Stile's interview with Football Coach Phil
Watson
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