YATES CENTER — The old adage is that you can learn more about your team with how they respond to a loss rather than a win.
Tuesday night was Yates Center boys’ basketball coach Tanner Davis’s first chance to see how his team acted after a loss — the Wildcats were 8-1 after losing the Wilson County Classic championship game to a ranked Girard squad on Friday — and Davis couldn’t have asked for much more.
“You can’t be disappointed at all,” Davis said.
The Wildcats could have picked whatever score they wanted against Pleasanton after they built a 20-2 lead after four minutes of play.
“With teams like this you just have to try and work on stuff,” Wildcat sophomore Aaron King said. “Overall, we did a good job and came back from that loss on Friday pretty darn well.”
Yates Center quickly went to its deep bench and also turned off its press, which absolutely destroyed the Jays in the early minutes and the game ended with a 74-37 Wildcat win.
One of the most impressive things about the Wildcats’ start this season is that to the outsider, this is not supposed to be their year to make a run.
The team is stacked with talent from leading scorer Aaron King — averaging nearly 23 points a game and had 21 against the Jays — to point guard Hadley Splechter — who didn’t even play on Tuesday with a mild ankle injury. But both those players are just sophomores.
Wings Kobe Forsyth and Jordan Smith, along with forward Joshua King, are juniors. Next season should be Yates Center’s ‘year.’
But why wait?
With senior guard Mikey Bruner joining that young core, the Wildcats are already 9-1 with that only loss being to a Girard team that would scare nearly every team in the state, regardless of level.
The Wildcats are buoyed by a incredible amount of versatility and depth this season.
“You never know who is going to be a threat and where,” Smith said. “It is nice to keep the defense guessing.”
Aaron King is a 6-3 forward in the technical sense, but on many of the Wildcats’ possessions, you will see the lanky sophomore taking the ball down the floor himself.
He is also a terror on the top of the press defensively and is a 40 percent three-point shooter this season on 48 attempts.
“I can go inside if I want to, but it all depends on who is guarding me,” King said.
Bruner, normally an off-guard, shifted over to the point guard spot with Splechter sidelined, but the standout football player brings that physicality to the floor and can play inside on defense if Davis chooses to go small.
“Mikey hasn’t played point guard all year, but he filled in and did a nice job,” Davis said. “I have a lot of guys that can fill in and do some nice things.”
If Davis chooses to go big, he can go really big with 6-11 senior Jon Barnes off the bench. The Wildcats also have more options at guard with senior Gavin Dillow and sophomore Nolan Jones being reliable assets.
“The way we play, we like to get up and down the court, so have to have depth,” Davis said. “With Hadley being out, Nolan played a heck of a game.”
Aaron King points out that having Barnes to use off the bench is luxury that not many teams’ enjoy.
“Those seniors fill their roles pretty well,” King said. “Not many people can say they have a 6-11 kid not starting.”
The bottom line is that come postseason time, there will not be a team in 2A that will looking forward to seeing Yates Center in its bracket.
“We want to win league, our goal is to go undefeated in the league, but winning the league is the first goal,” Smith said. “Then we go to substate, win sub-state and see what we can do at state.”
UP NEXT
The Wildcats will try to keep their undefeated mark in the Three Rivers League alive on Friday when Marmaton Valley comes to Yates Center.
Splechter’s status for that game remains up in the air as the Wildcats have three games next week and would like to have their point guard for that.
