Memorial’s boys basketball team has started its second season with an overtime win over Eagle Mountain and a loss to Weatherford. The Mavericks host Peaster on Saturday before going off to Amarillo for a tournament next week.
The Memorial Messenger spoke to coach Carter Bien to discuss the team’s preparations, challenges and inspirations on what to expect for the upcoming season.
Q: What games are you looking forward to?
A: I’ve always looked forward to the district games later in the year. You know hopefully by that point our teams are hitting a stride. Hopefully Joe Castles has picked up his game a bit and we’re ready to go. District games are always the ones that matter the most so we always get excited for those.
Q: Who are some key players this year?
A: Joe Castles, he’s our leader on and off the court. He brings that football mentality of being a leader as a quarterback. But then we’ve got a lot of other key players like another senior Frank Schmidt, Nash Melton, Dane Gordon and McKale Hookfin. It’s a good group. There’s not one player that needs to do great for us to be great. It’s a team. Player by player, we have to play together to be able to do anything, and all of them are pretty important.
Q: What is the biggest challenge for the team?
A: Really staying consistent, not playing down to other teams, not just hyping up one game, being consistent throughout the year. That old cliche of getting better every single day. But just really consistency, not riding the rollercoaster of emotions.
Q: What is going to be your team’s biggest strengths?
A: Togetherness I think. The biggest strength is any given night someone will surprise the team and pull out a surprise. Really we all just care about winning the game together. We don’t care about individual stats so that’s the biggest strength of our team.
Q: What inspired you to become a basketball coach?
A: Just during my days of playing, I always remember being in high school and really trying to coach my teammates to get better and learn differently, and always wanting to compete to this day as an adult. And the best way to do that is to continue as a coach.
Q: Who are you expecting to be the toughest competition this season?
A: Probably Abilene High in our district. They are probably top of the pyramid. Coach Reese does a really good job with those guys. They’re always prepared for when we play him, but everyone in our district is good. But I would say Abilene will be the toughest team we play in the district.
