By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
The Carthage boys basketball team ended a streak of seven-straight losing seasons with a 13-13 record last winter and things could have been even better.
The Tigers lost five games by three points or less and stood three games over .500 after a 7-2 stretch in January and February. Losses to Ozark, Webb City and Republic to end the year prevented a winning record.
“We were right there, we were playing our best basketball by the end of the season,” said head coach Nathan Morris, who’s entering his second year at the helm.
After the football team played into December while winning a state championship, the basketball team used the first month as a preseason of sorts before ramping up in January.
“Our 13-13 record was a lot closer to being a lot better than that,” Morris said. “Our senior group of kids played really well last year. We lost two huge players in Alex Martini and Taris Jackson but I think they’ve left this program in a better spot.”
Last year’s team had six seniors on the roster but Martini and Jackson will be especially tough to replace. The 6-foot-7 Martini was a 1,000-point scorer and finished in the top five in Carthage history as well as the school’s all-time leader in rebounds and varsity games played. He was a first team all-conference, all-district and all-area player who signed with Central Missouri to play football.
Jackson, a 6-3 point guard, finished in the top five in all-time steals, assists and three-point field goals at Carthage. He was a first team all-district player and also earned second team all-area honors and third team all-conference honors. He and Martini combined to score 28 points per game.
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“With those two guys that was 57 percent of our total scoring from last year,” Morris said. “Ended up being 170 career varsity starts between the two of them. Four kids out of that senior class of six are now playing college football so we had some big time athletes in that group.”
Jackson signed with Missouri Southern for track and field.
So who’s back for Carthage?
The Tigers do return three starters in Joel Pugh, Patrick Carlton and Morgan Frisinger.
Pugh, a 5-11 junior shooting guard, played in 26 games and averaged 6.7 points, 3.2 rebounds and 1.8 assists. Carlton, a senior, is a three-year starter who also plays quarterback for the football team. He’s a 6-2 forward who scored 9.5 points per game and averaged four rebounds. And Frisinger, another senior, is a 5-10 guard who scored 3.8 points and dished out two assists per game.
“It’s obviously huge that they saw the success and the losses actually, everything that took place last year,” Morris said. “They were fully in the mix of that, right in the trenches with our seniors that left. Patrick has three years of good varsity experience. Joel got two-and-a-half, we played him toward the end of his freshman season. They’re going to be huge to lean on because we will probably be playing a sophomore point guard and a freshman along with them.”
The sophomore is 5-9 Max Templeman, who scored 2.3 points per game in limited action towards the end of his freshman season.
“He’s a dude that has a different speed with the basketball, a very aggressive mentality and he’ll be huge to replace what we lost with Taris,” Morris said.
The freshman is 5-10 Justin Ray, the son of former Carthage coach Steve Ray. He’ll share point guard duties with Templeman.
Carthage will rely on players like senior Silas Templeman and junior Caden Kabance off the bench. The elder Templeman is a 6-1 forward but he’ll miss a few months after breaking his collarbone during the football season. Kabance is a 6-0 guard and another football player who Morris described as a “long defender” who can help out Frisinger defensively.
Three or four more seniors and a couple sophomores will all be fighting for the seven, eight and nine spots off the bench.
“It’s going to be kind of an open fight for the end of our varsity bench this year which is a good thing and a bad thing,” Morris said.
Pugh and the Templeman brothers were selected as the team’s three captains, meaning the Tigers will rely on a rare sophomore captain to help lead the team.
“His mentality, the way he plays is kind of infectious,” Morris said of Max. “These guys are going to lean on the shoulders of a sophomore this year.”
The Tigers averaged 55 points per game last year and allowed 52.6. They maintained advantages in turnovers, steals and assists but were out-rebounded by about two boards a game.
Losing two players who stood 6-7 and 6-2 and replacing them in the starting lineup with guys under six feet will necessitate a change in how the Tigers play.
“We developed a different way to play this summer and if we can get teams to play at our speed and get them sped up this group has a chance to be successful,” Morris said. “We have more shooting ability this year than I can remember in at least the time I’ve been at Carthage. We are very, very young, obviously in the starting lineup, on our bench so just getting our guys out on the court and playing games this year is extremely important.”
Morris assisted Ray for seven years before taking over as head coach last season.
