2018: ND Class Region 7 Preview, New England
New England is facing the same question they always seem to be facing. How do we build a competitive Region 7 team even though we have the smallest school enrollment in the region?
Kain Hanson is in charge of finding a solution to the tough question. He took over for Shawn Flaherty this year. Right now New England has 16 kids out for basketball in grades 9-12. Hanson said finding players is always a challenge.
“It’s definitely a lot harder to compete when you have the bigger schools who are easily fielding three teams and some teams even have to make cuts,” Hanson said. “We’re just trying to get any guy in any class 9-12 to come out and play. It’s definitely hard when you have a small enrollment.”
On top of trying to boost the program’s participation numbers, Hanson will also be trying to replace a senior class of six players. Hanson said last year’s seniors class played the majority of significant minutes last year.
“They all played significant minutes. We had roles players, scorers and everything last year. We lost all those guys. So, we don’t have a whole lot of experience right now,” Hanson said.
New England will be trying to move new players into key roles this year. Hanson said this year’s team is young but they have the potential to be a competitive team late in the year.
“We’re are really, really young this year. We only have one senior this year. We have one senior, five juniors, four sophomores. Basically, all of those kids are going to end up seeing some time on the floor,” Hanson said.
They suffered a season-opening loss to Grant County but Hanson still thinks his team can learn from the game.
“We are going to learn from it and keep on building and by the time the end of the year rolls around I think we’ll be competitive in the region,” Hanson said.
Coaching Change
Hanson was on the coaching staff when Flaherty was the head coach along with Clarence Binstock. Hanson said he still gets advice from Flaherty and doesn’t plan on making drastic changes this year.
“It’s my first year as the head coach. Clarence Binstock and I, we were the assistant coaches for the last two years. This year is my first year as head coach and he’s still my assistant,” Hanson said. “I still talk to coach [Shawn] Flaherty quite a bit, he was the coach last year. I still get a lot of good advice from him and keep a lot of the stuff the same. Because the kids are used to that. “
Overall, Hanson said he wants to be an up and down team this year since his squad doesn’t have team height like they had with 6-8 Cody Holt or when they went to state in 2015.
“We are young, pretty athletic. We don’t have a big guy like we did in the past when we had the 6-8 kid. We’re looking to get up and down the floor and pressure the ball. That kind of offensive and defensive game.”