Wildcat Basketball Season Starts Tonight At Home, Coach Mac Talks

Darren Doyle
The Edmonson County Wildcat basketball team hopes to have a full crowd at ECHS tonight as they kickoff the 2015-16 season against Breckinridge County. Head Coach Mike McClintic, or "Coach Mac," as he's more commonly known, sat down with us and shared his expectations with this year's team.

Coach Mac said that not only did the team lose some great teammates from last year, they also lost good leaders off the floor as well. Leadership that the coach said has already carried over to this year's five seniors.

Coach Mac said there will be more man-to-man defense this year, something that has been a key in practice. "It looks a lot better than what we really anticipated at this point, and it's coming along just fine."

Three point shooting is something that he said needs some work. "It's not where we want it to be, we didn't shoot the ball well from the three in our two scrimmage games, but we're also trying to get the ball inside, and I think we're doing a good job of that."

He also said that after watching replays of the scrimmages against Allen and Green Counties, defensive rebounding also needed a little work, although there was an improvement between the two games.

Coach Mac also had plenty of positives to talk about, too. "I thought we handled the ball really well, our turnovers haven't been too bad. Green County put some pressure on us and we were able to handle the ball and get some easy buckets, so even with losing some kids that could really handle the ball last year, we're very happy with that right now."

Scrimmages are one thing, the season opener at home is another, especially when it's against the number one pre-ranked team in the region, which is tonight against Breckinridge County.

"We expect lots of dribble-drives from them," coach said. "They have a great ball handler, a great shooter, and a 6'7" kid that can come out on the floor, shoot the three, and then they have a big kid inside, so it's going to be a matchup that we have to be concerned with. It''ll be a challenge."

Any coach will tell you that you can only go one game at a time, and an entire season's expectations are sometimes hard to list before the season's first tip, however, Coach Mac said he and his staff have clear expectations for this Wildcat team. 

"We want to improve as the year goes on and be close to our full potential by January. That's when district play starts. Our district is going to be very competitive and when it comes tournament time, we want to be at our peak."

Tip-off is scheduled for 5:30pm as things get started with the JV team, with the varsity game beginning immediately afterward. You can listen to the live broadcast tonight on Wildcats Live, only on EdmonsonVoice.com,  as the guys bring you all the play-by-play action.