During this season, the basketball team has been on a downturn, losing 11 out of 18 games and one game against Mahtomedi, Stillwater’s long time rival. With this loss, the basketball team is trying to bring it together for a successful end to their season. 

“If we look at it record-wise, we are not as great as historical expectations are for Stillwater basketball, but I also think that you have to look at each season individually. I think we are having a good season, our guys play hard. Right now we currently have zero players that played a minute of varsity basketball last year. They are coming along, and we have had a couple of good close games lately,” coach Brady Hannigan said.

The basketball team won seven out of 11 matches this season, but most of their losses have been this year. After the losses, Hannigan has been trying to promote teamwork and team relations.

“I am talking to our guys every day about communication. There is a difference between talking and communicating, I can talk to myself all day and never pass on an ounce of information to anybody around me. I need to be able to communicate things to them, I have to be able to understand what they want,” Hannigan said.

The basketball team recently played their long time rival Mahtomedi on Jan. 4. They lost by three points and the team was disappointed. 

“We always want to beat Mahtomedi, just because it is Mahtomedi, but it was early in the year, we were still getting into the swing of things. But I think it was definitely a winnable game, and we just could not finish the game and ended up losing,” junior Tyler Tompkins said.

Having come off of some losses in the early year, the team was nervous to go against Park High School knowing they had a good team. They played well and were able to come out with a substantial win.

Tompkins said, against Park they played really well. It was a high scoring game. They scored 75 points and were able to beat them by over 20.

The coach is practicing every day after school trying to master their offense. Mastering offense should put their team on the map because their defense is already one of the best in the league.

“Our team is really mastering offense, and rotating a lot better. It would help in a lot of our games,” junior Nick Cherry said.

With their recent games being close in score, hopefully, they can increase their offense to score a few more points. Their record is currently seven and ten, and the team is optimistic.

“We are trying to race and win some games to get some section home games,” Cherry added.