Basketball Season Delayed For Wolverines
By EDDY GIFFORD
Sports Writer
Photo by Eddy Gifford – New Wolverine basketball coach James Emmett watches intently as the team goes through pre-season workouts last week. The Wolverines season has been delayed a few days due to football being in the playoffs but will get underway next week when they travel to Oakwood Christian on Nov. 19. Good luck to the Wolverines as basketball gets underway.
The Dade County Wolverine basketball team will have to wait to tip off the 2024-2025 season due to a number of the team members still playing football. The football season was extended a week due to the hurricanes, and now the team is in the playoffs and will be playing this week.
First-year coach James Emmett shared some insight into the upcoming season and what they have been doing to prepare. Here is what he had to say about the upcoming season.
“We plan to have 22 players. I have 11 with me right now that are in their third week of practice. Eleven more will come from the football team once their season is over.
“The best I can tell is that we will have five seniors – all football players: Jace Anderson, Bryson Shrader, Carter Christiansen, Braydan Jones, and Kyler Pardue. Those kids will be depended on as leaders and major pieces of the varsity team. Shrader was on the second team All-Region last year.
“We should have seven juniors. Five of those, H. Garmany, Parker Hill, Tanner Miller, Evan Avans, and Nate Hurst, will be depended on to provide significant varsity minutes and depth.
“We should have two sophomores and eight freshmen. These kids have a bright future and will have opportunities to contribute as well.
“We had seven weeks of preseason morning workouts from August through October. During these workouts, I could work with four players at a time. We were able to get quite a bit accomplished during these. We kept a running total of how many shots we were able to get up during these workouts. The total for all kids together was over 40,000. Proud of how they showed up at 6:30 a.m., on their specific weekly workout day and worked hard.
“We have had to reschedule a couple of games due to the football playoffs being pushed back. The Nov. 14 boys’ games verses Sylvania will now be Nov. 23. The Nov. 16 girls’ and boys’ games verses North Sand Mountain will now be on Jan. 6.
“One of the main goals at the beginning of the season will be to get the 11 football players acclimated as quickly as possible. This may take a little time with the pace/tempo that we want to play,” coach Emmett said.
The Wolverines first game will now be Nov. 19 at Oakwood Christian. They will play Sylvania on Nov. 23 at home with Junior Varsity playing at 5 p.m. and varsity at 6:30 p.m.
Get out and support Wolverine basketball!
