But instead of focusing on all of the questions that still need to be answered in the coming months, Felix has put his heart into developing the group of boys he has and “letting the chips fall as they may.”
The Hornets have been perennial SMAA title contenders since the beginning of the decade and Felix guided the 2005 squad to a 25-1 mark, but he said the way he defines success is not going to change just because this year’s team looks a little different on paper.
“We’re not going to define success any differently than we have in the past. We define success by improving each day, and depending on your improvement and the strides you make you’re going to have different goals you might be able to make,” he said.
Felix will be the first to admit that he doesn’t know his starting lineup, the summer participation wasn’t all that great and he feels like he’s a “little behind the 8-ball” compared to previous seasons, but he knows exactly what he wants.
Among the biggest tasks is finding ample leadership following the graduation of last year’s leading scorer for the entire Jackson area in Gabriele, who is a rare breed in Felix’s mind.
“Right now, as far filling the shoes of Mitchell, I haven’t coached many kids like him,” Felix said. “He was probably the smartest basketball player I’ve ever coached as far as just having the IQ — I don’t think he was the best player I’ve ever coached but he was by far the best quarterback I’ve ever had on the floor.”
He said his current group of players has had more exposure to pickup games than organized basketball and he has been spending a lot of time trying to mold them into reliable, responsible pieces of a puzzle that is still coming into focus.
“We sit in the classroom before every single practice, and to be honest with you, the first month or so of the season we don’t sit in here and talk about basketball too often. We talk about being men, being responsible, being respectful, doing the right things, how to be a leader,” he said. “We talk about a lot of good things that really don’t have a lot to do with basketball. We look at off-court character...what we eventually hope to do through all this talking and studying is we hope we can develop a leader we can go to.”
Some of the anticipated candidates for such a role could be seniors Kurtis Condon, Nick Bakerjian and Nick Reiniche.
Condon is the lone starter from last year’s team that went 14-7 and Felix said he did a good job of understanding he was a fourth or fifth option in 2008 and now he expects he will step nicely into a much larger role.
“One thing, we made him captain, so we’re trying to increase his leadership role right there by just saying you have the green light,” he said. “I’ve told him we need him to look to score and Kurtis is one of the smartest guys we have on the team as far as seeing the whole picture out there.”
According to the head coach, Condon has an improved 3-point stroke and he could easily be the team’s leading scorer.
In the backcourt it’s going to come down to the play of Bakerjian, as well as talented sophomore Cameron Holroyd, but Felix said he is still feeling it all out, and rightfully so.
Last year he had Gabriele, Lantis who was dubbed “Big Shot Scott” for his late-game proficiency and Kyle MacDonald, who is playing at JCC this year.
“It’s a crapshoot right now. Obviously based on experience, we’ll see what Bakerjian can do and Cameron brings a little bit of experience,” Felix said. “Physically (Cameron is) the most gifted guard we’ve got as far as handling the ball and creating offense off the dribble and making pretty decent decisions. But he’s still young and he’s still got so much to learn.”
Felix hopes Holroyd can be “the guy” bringing the ball up the court, but juniors Patrick Martin and Caleb McDonald are also possibilities.
Felix said he’s willing to change the way he orchestrates the game if he has to with this group, but so far it appears the transition game and a solid press defense are the best way to move forward.
“We went into the summer and played slow and I really didn’t care for the results,” he said.
One category the Hornets are not lacking in is size, and Felix thinks rebounding may be the single most important statistic for this team.
If the 6-foot-3 Reiniche can stay healthy, after missing most of last season and part of football season, he is someone Felix hopes to get 25-plus minutes out of each night, and the 6-3 Sonny McCoy and 6-4 Dan Vear are untapped vessels at this point.
McCoy is a somewhat raw talent who Felix is trying to find a way to use in the middle of his press and Vear showed he is a capable scorer at the JV level, but Hornets’ coaches are trying to pull him in from the perimeter and transform him into more of a true “big man.”
“We’re big. I think rebounding is going to be an absolute key to our season. We really believe as a coaching staff, with rebounding we can be in and stay in games,” Felix said. “I’m talking both ends — if we can rebound on the defensive end and limit teams to one shot, that’s huge, because we can’t give up two, three or four and compete. And on offense, we need two, three, four shots and we need to create some offense off the glass because we do have some size.”
With Condon also measuring in at 6-3 Felix said it is very possible he will run out three 6-3 or taller guys at one time to create mismatches.
Despite the potential that exists, some fans are speculating this is Felix’s least talented team in a while, and they wonder how the fervent, animated head coach is going to handle it.
Felix said he’s heard all the criticism that he’s too much of a yeller and he’s too hard on his guys, but he knows he has plenty of support from the people who matter to him, and he realizes people don’t see what goes on behind the scenes.
“Most people don’t realize all the things that go on before game night. They don’t see us at a team dinner, laughing, giggling and telling jokes — they don’t see us sitting in the classroom laughing and giggling about just anything,” he said. “They don’t see me sitting here at lunch with all my players. I’ve got a good relationship with my players — you’re not going to please everybody, but my players don’t hate me.”
He admits he always has high expectations for his teams and in every one of his 18 years as a head coach he has been a disciplinarian whose first goal is to teach lessons and hold the kids accountable.
“It’s just like teaching anything. Repetitive mistakes need to be dealt with in some sort of manner. Everybody wants to build self-esteem, ‘nice job’, ‘you’re trying hard’, ‘way to go’, and I’m just not a believer in that all the time,” he said. “There’s got to be a moment in time where it’s ‘No, I’ve told you 15 times, you need to sit on the bench.’ That’s the way life is. Life’s not all about patting you on the back all the time.”
With that mind, Felix just chuckles when he hears people question how he’s going to handle losing, if and when it happens.
Because in fact, he’s been there before — and he’s survived and moved on.
“There’s all this talk about ‘Felix is going to finally lose’ and blah blah blah. I’ve had plenty of seasons below .500. I’ve experienced what that’s like,” he said. “When I took over the girls program they hadn’t won a game in three years, but people don’t remember that anymore because that was 10 or 11 years ago. I stepped into that program and they had lost 47 games in a row. I took it upon myself to get after that team, but my first three years we won seven (games), nine, and four, so I know what it’s like to lose.”
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