Boys basketball goes 1-2 on the week

Cole Schmitt, Online Editor-in-Chief

The Manhattan High Varsity boys basketball team is now 4-5 this season after beating Seaman and falling to Highland Park and Washburn Rural this week. The three-game stretch last week wore on the Indians and they’ll look to be better on it during this week as they have three more games.

“[They were] some tough games,” senior Cade Wilson said. “I thought we shot the ball pretty well last week, but we need to pick up the intensity in practice this week.”

The Indians did shoot the ball well, draining 11 three-pointers in the game against Seaman. But shooting wasn’t the problem, it was moving the ball and getting good looks inside, according to senior Mason Reid.

“We weren’t very good offensively the two we lost,” Reid said. “We need to work on our zone offense for next week. We didn’t go 0-3 so that was good. The goal for this week is to go 3-0 and get back to the top of the league.”

Against Highland Park, the Indians trailed 14-28 at the half, and at Washburn they trailed 15-30. For the majority of the losses this season, Manhattan has trailed at half, some by a large margin. Reid says they need to start faster and that will lead to more opportunity for wins. 

“[We need] to focus a little more in warm ups and make sure we are warming up well,” Reid said.

The Centennial League is stacked this year, with any team capable of beating another on any given night. Only two teams out of the ten don’t have five or more losses: Topeka West and Washburn. This means there are definitely opportunities for Manhattan to jump a couple spots in the standings this week.
“I think we’re a little young and a little inexperienced,” Wilson said. “We will continue to get better as the season goes on so that when we play [other teams] again we hopefully have a good shot at them.”

The Indians will host Topeka High tonight and then travel on Friday and Saturday against Junction City and Emporia.