Spokane won three games in coach Kyle Johnson’s first season at the helm. The Owls have the pieces returning and familiarity with Johnson’s system to make improvements on last season’s record.
Our depth and our basketball IQ will be much better this year and should be strengths for our team. Our players all know the system both offensively and defensively which will really help during practice,” Johnson said. “We can now try to perfect our offense and defense, as opposed to learning the system, which was the case for much of the season last year. Year two will be a lot smoother than year one, it always is, but now it’s time to get to work and start winning games.”
Spokane returns its three leading scorers from last year in junior Isaiah Bean and seniors Jack Rigdon and Chase Horton. Bean poured in 14.4 points per game along with 6.1 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 1.2 steals per game. Rigdon was also in double figures at 10.8 points per game along with 4.3 rebounds. Horton rounds out the trio with 8.3 points and 3.1 assists per game.
Spokane will have a host of newcomers that includes three juniors and five freshmen.
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The juniors are: Hunter Davis, Peyton Bonzer and Jordan Leigh. The freshman quintet is Jackson Bray, Zayne Gale, Daniel Newell, Grant Stewart and Sam Shuman. Gale is the tallest player Johnson listed at 6-foot-4.
“We will definitely be young which will probably be our biggest weakness. We are not the biggest team or the tallest team either but these guys fight and I’m excited to see them compete each night,” Johnson said.
Outside of Gale, Rigdon and Bean are the only players listed as taller than 6-foot-1.
“I am very excited about this upcoming season. We return great leadership and have a great incoming freshmen class that will compete for time and push our older guys in practice each day. We will be a much better team on both sides of the floor and will also be a lot deeper off the bench. Our guys have worked hard over the past year to improve and make sure we don’t have another season like we did last year,” Johnson said. “We competed last year and lost a lot of close games but ultimately came up short in a lot of those games. This year we need to win those games and I really believe this team can, and I think we are going to surprise some people. Skill wise we are much better than we were last year and our basketball knowledge and IQ has improved greatly over the offseason. This being my second year, the guys now know the system both offensively and defensively which helps out so much. We don’t have to install a system like we did last year, now we get to work on perfecting it. I am excited about the future of our team and program and cannot wait to get started.”
Spokane opens its season on Nov. 21 at Hollister.
