New basketball coach starts season

So far this basketball season, things haven’t quite fallen into place yet for Mike Whitten, the new basketball coach for Wimberley High School. To start, good news for the Texan football team making the post-season playoffs hasn’t been all good for the new basketball coach

With the football season extended, some prospects won’t join the basketball team until later. Also, Colby Boyle, an expected starter for Whitten’s team, may be unavailable for some time if the football team continues to advance in the playoffs. Plus, this year a strong Boerne basketball team was moved by the University Interscholastic League (UIL ) into the same district with the Wimberley. But that’s okay. Time and sports march with the seasons.

‘We executed well in our two pre-season scrimmages against strong teams,” the coach said. “Obviously we need to work on some aspects of the game but I was pretty pleased with those practice games. This is a new system that the kids haven’t run before, but they’ve done a good job of adapting, and I think it’s going to work for us.”

Explaining the formation he favors, coach Whitten said, “We run a version of the Michigan two-guard offense. As I studied that formation then evaluated our personnel, I saw it could be a good system to spread out the defense. That distance allows us to isolate guards in certain situations. This formation also forces the defense into dealing with changing situations. I like what this offense gives Michigan and I think it can provide us some of the same advantages.”

Listing his bigs, those tall players under the nets, Coach Whitten first mentioned Landon Kirchner , a starter from last year. “He’s about 6’5” and last year he finished in the top five in Central Texas for blocked shots. We also may get Colby Boyle after the football playoffs end. At 6’5, he could give us more power in the paint.”

“Another likely varsity starter is Jack Meisner who’s bigger and stronger so he can move opponents around. He’s also very effective under the basket but he can also pull the defense out to the perimeter. He’s also got a good jump shot from outside.”

Assistant coaches for the Texan include Cade Pharris and Greg Dydaliwicz. Jeremy Mauk may come over from the middle school to help at times.

“This is Wimberley’s first year in a newly-arranged district,” Whitten cautions. “Last year, we lost to Boerne in the third round, but now they’re in our district which makes for tougher regular season competition. Just based on what I saw last year, Fredericksburg also will be tough. Those two definitely will be our biggest competitors in this district.”

The Texans played Floresville on November 13 to challenge a 5A school that was good, fast and physical. The Texans stayed with the bigger school team but eventually lost 52-61. “I’m not opposed to this level of challenge,” Whitten says. “Such challenges give us a chance to see what we need to improve as a team. “

This past Monday, the Texans opened the regular season at Universal City against Randolph High School (recap below) then hosted Blanco on Tuesday night (after press time.)

Asked about the question of students perhaps moving too soon from one sport season to the next without a break, Whitten says, “No, I don’t see any ‘burnout’ effect when the football guys come over to basketball after a tough football season. Actually, in thirteen years of coaching, I’ve not seen any kind of burn out from these transitions. “Typically, guys come in excited to start. We don’t thrust them into the first game but ease them into various situations over several games while they adapt.”

Coach Whitten studied at Concordia University in Austin, became a police officer and held various jobs. “But, I missed the sports and coaching so I went back to Concordia and got my Masters’ degree to become a world history and geography teacher. I coached at Georgetown and also was the head basketball coach at Kyle Lehman High School.”

“But we lived here in Wimberley and the kids went to school here, so last year I took a junior high job at Wimberley. When coach McDormand resigned, I was offered the head basketball job. So, here I am---First year coach all over again!”

After the Thanksgiving break, Wimberley will hit the road on November 27 for a game at Fox Tech in San Antonio. Then then play away at Marion on November 30.