Caleb Lung is primed to help run the NorthWood Panthers boys basketball team this season. (File photo by Mike Deak)
NAPPANEE – Another big year for NorthWood has left the bar raised very high, and Aaron Wolfe and the Panthers are ready to maintain its elite pace in 2017-18.
The loud thud at the end of the dream season last year was heard around the state, as the No. 2-ranked Panthers were shockingly upset at the sectional by Fairfield. Watching NorthWood’s players exit the lockerroom one by one, some nearly a full hour after the game had ended, was a memory NorthWood can use both as fuel and also to forget as the Panthers look to rebound this winter.
But getting back to prominence will take a rebuild of sorts, as the winningest class in program history graduates. The trio of Vinny Miranda, Luke Zurcher and Trey Bilinski took 63 percent of the teams shots and scored 65 percent of the team’s points in what was a fourth consecutive 20-win season. All told, NorthWood went 89-12 with that senior class in the program, finishing 21-3 a year ago. Ironically, with as good as NorthWood was in that four-year stretch, the team did not win a Northern Lakes Conference title, falling short to Northridge in 2014 and Warsaw’s current three-peat.
With the conference losing a ton of stars to graduation, including the Panthers, is this the year NorthWood can end the 11-year drought going back to the Ryne Lightfoot-led 2006-07 team?
“We are really trying to focus on each team as it’s own journey, and we definitely feel like this team is ready for a new journey,” Wolfe said, entering his 11th year on the NorthWood sideline. “We do not try to tie expectations to what other players and teams did in the past. We have an exciting group of seniors where we are keeping six seniors and a combination of juniors and underclassmen. We really do have to take it one day at a time.”
Wolfe notes the current squad will have to reassemble almost all of its prior looks, largely to fill in the voids of what the seniors did within the offense. Caleb Glick and Caleb Lung, now the senior leaders of the roster, along with classmates DeAndre Smart and Brad Delio, bring a ton of experience in the system, all playing at least two years of varsity ball coming into this winter.
Lung, at 6-2, is the leading returner in scoring at 9.5 points per game, and led the team last season with 5.5 rebounds per game. His length inside as well as the ability to handle the ball gives Wolfe that dual option much like he had with Zurcher, D.K. Fox and Will Stueve from recent vintage. Glick also stands at 6-2 and is the leading assist man returning with 48 dimes.
Delio quietly mirrored a lot of what Miranda did on a smaller scale without the big scoring numbers, running the offense when needed and providing crooked numbers on the stat sheets in all 24 games. Smart, another rangy and athletic forward to come through the NorthWood program, has the ability to play above the rim and cause plenty of matchup problems inside or on the wing.
“It’s unique for us because every player on this basketball team is working into a new role,” Wolfe said. “I think it will be important to look at this basketball team and try not to judge where we are at. I think this is a group where we are concerned with who we are becoming. Our rotation could change throughout the year, and we’re excited about that. We want to see how we grow from day to day. Those are the unknowns – the rotations, the playing time – that make it exciting to come to practice every day.”
Wolfe, who has been comfortable working seven to eight-man rotations the past couple seasons, feels his club is capable of generating its identity early. With all the changes in the rotation, however, Wolfe notes seniors Luke Holland and Jordan BeMiller and juniors Kaden Gongwer, Nick Bean and Matt Dutkowski all could also step in and fill valuable minutes.
“We have to call on all of that prior experience to make this basketball team find the success we hope to achieve,” Wolfe said. “I’m very excited to see how we perform.”
NorthWood opens Wednesday against Lakeland and entertains South Bend St. Joe on Saturday, both at The Pit.