It’s that time of the year again, basketball season is almost here! Basketball tryouts for Smoky were on Thursday Nov 12, and Friday Nov 13. Tryouts for freshman and sophomores began at 4:15 and ended at 6:30. Juniors and seniors had tryouts from 6:30 to 8:15. New head coach Anthony Hardin is bringing a lot of excitement to the program, as a lot of players are went out for the basketball team this season. “It would truly be a blessing if I made the basketball team this season., I’m just gonna go out and play my game during tryouts and see what happens”, senior Mack Hughes said.

The Varsity roster will look a lot different this year after Smoky graduated 10 seniors last season, and this year’s roster will only have 2 seniors on the team.

New head coach Anthony Hardin was previously an assistant coach at Overland High School, where he helped lead the Trail Blazers to the 5A State Championship last season. Coach Hardin is looking to bring that same success back to Smoky Hill. “We have a ton of young talent on this roster, I feel like we have the talent to win a State Championship and with this coaching staff we will only continue to get better from this point on”, senior Jordan Newton said.

The Varsity roster was finalized last friday, with 12 players on the current roster. Three of players on this roster will have to miss the first 11 games since they are transfer students. The other 9 players are going to have to play a prominent role since the roster will not be as deep as the other rosters that Smoky will compete against.
The basketball team will look to continue their same success when they start the season on Dec 1, when they take on Arvada West.