By: Jafar Abdi

Basketball season is here! With the excitement of the sport also comes teams and tryouts. Here at Highland, we have 3 different teams for you to play on: B-Squad (also known as C-Squad), JV (Junior Varsity), and Varsity.

According to Stack.com, “Feeling nervous before basketball tryouts is completely normal. Some of those nerves typically stem from fear of the unknown. When you don’t know what’s going to happen at a basketball tryout, it can be difficult to feel confident and prepared.” But what’s important is that you play hard and work even harder. Now here is what to expect.

Tryouts were November 20th-22nd, with the C-Squad trying out at 3-5PM and the other teams trying out at 5-7PM. There were a lot of basic offensive drills like either handed layups but there was also some defense like sliding/shuffling.

There was also around 30 players trying out, and the coach would most likely choose around 12-15. Players who already played for the C-Squad last year wouldn’t be chosen by the coach to play again, so good luck to them on the higher squads!

On top of regular drills, there was lots of conditioning with the coach having players doing “suicides” which is running up and down the court multiple times at a sprint.

Besides the actual content of the tryouts the actual players would be mostly freshman, seeing as the upperclassmen were trying out for the higher squads. Not to say that a sophomore or junior couldn’t participate in C-Squad tryouts, but that there were not that many people that age.

The coach would be looking for players who could be a leader on the court, with good sportsmanship, and were hard working, so you needed to make sure to give it your all.

The 1st game of the season was on Tuesday, Dec 5th, with Varsity and JV losing and C-Squad winning. All-in-all, basketball is a great sport to play, and it’s an even better feeling when you can play for your school. I wish everyone good luck and hopefully they have a good season!