Maples basketball back on the court

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/02/2022 (1320 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Just to lace up his sneakers and hit the court was a relief.

“It feels great to be back, because waiting a year to come back and not knowing if you’re even going to have a senior season — that’s crazy. So, I’m grateful just to be back to play,” said Ethan Fast, a Grade 12 student on the varsity boys basketball team at Maples Collegiate.

The whole team seems to have gotten a jolt from the return to play, Fast said.

“Everyone just has lots of energy and is just happy to be there everyday for practice, games — everyone’s pumped to be there,” he said.

It’s a familiar tune student athletes have been singing all year. Underpinning their desire to put up points and win games is an appreciation to simply play the sport, after last year’s cancellations took from students athletic opportunities once taken for granted.

This appreciation showed in Fast’s attitude about the Marauders’ up and down start.

“It’s gone really well. I mean, we’ve lost games and stuff. But even if we lose games, we don’t tend to dwell on it. You got to keep moving forward, right? Always strive for more and keep getting better throughout the season,” Fast said.

And while the team has maintained a win-one, lose-one pattern throughout the first weeks of the season, Fast feels his team has already built lots of team chemistry and that in that sense, its trending upward. He also thinks his teammates have figured out their personal strengths, which he sees as a positive.

Fast said his own strength is being a leader. Among other things, that means to him “making plays when the right time is there for me to make plays, scoring when the team needs me to score.”

Head coach Myles Panganiban said that’s exactly the sort of thing he’s trying to instill in his players.

“That’s a big piece of the culture that I try to develop at Maples,” he said. “To, kind of, create more leaders. I do believe the world needs more leaders… And I find that kids, they just don’t like stepping on their friends’ toes. They don’t like sticking out. They’d rather just kind of blend in. So, one of the things that I try to instill is great leadership skills, and I tell the guys to know it’s OK to voice your opinion. It’s okay to speak up and show that you want to lead.”

Of course, Panganiban also tries to teach on-court skills as well. For him, one key is showing players not only how to get open, but how to make space for their teammates as well. That means moving well when they don’t have the ball and making sure they’re not standing still watching the play.

Moving forward, Panganiban said the Marauders are working on turning their defensive strengths into easy baskets on transition. The coach said he’s feeling good about his team’s chances to take its play to another level.

“The boys have been great so far this season. They understand that we aren’t where we want to be at the moment, but the potential is there and they understand what we have to do to get there,” he said.