Dec 01, 2022

2022-23 Preseason Profile: Wabaunsee boy's basketball

Posted Dec 01, 2022 3:03 PM

By TYLER HENRY
Little Apple Post contributor

After a terrific 17-6 campaign that saw them fall in overtime of the sub-state final, the Wabaunsee boy’s basketball team is hungry to run it back and take the next step in the 2022-23 season.

The Chargers will once again be under the direction of head coach Christian Ulsaker, who enters his fourth year at the helm in Alma.

Wabaunsee graduated just two seniors over the offseason and will return a deep roster, brimming with talent and experience, with several familiar faces lining a starting five that should look something like this come tip-off.

PG- Eli Oliver
G- Zach Frank
G- Logan Clark
G- Bryton Reves
F- Ryan Schutter

The Chargers will also look to the bench for big minutes from Lanson Parry, Maverick Havenstein, and Cole Frank.

Ahead of the start of their new campaign, we had a chance to catch up with Coach Ulsaker to get his thoughts on this year’s Chargers squad.

Q: What were your overall thoughts on the 2021-22 campaign?

A: We had a very successful season, 17-6 is nothing to hang your head about, we just got matched up with a very good St. Mary’s team that had a bunch of kids who went on to play at the next level. Overall the year was a good building block for our program and all of our guys got better as the season progressed.

Q: How excited is everyone to get back on the floor and back to playing real games after a long offseason?

A: Our guys are hungry, very much so. We have seven seniors and this will be the first group that I’ve had since they were freshmen so they understand what’s expected of them, the offense we run, what we expect from them on defense, and what it takes to be winners.

Q: Coming into the year what would you say is the biggest strength of this team?

A: Compared to years past this team has a lot of depth. I feel like I have 8-9 guys that I trust to be on the court at any given time, run the offense, and play defense at the high level that I expect. We also have some athletes and we have more size than normal for a 2A team.

Q: What are the biggest question marks about this team as we head into the first few weeks?

A: We need to continue to improve our three-point shooting. We have some guys coming back that can really shoot it but we want a few more guys that we can trust to shoot that open shot efficiently. Other than that we just have to make sure we don’t get complacent and understand that our past success isn’t where championships are crowned.

Q: What are the goals and expectations of this team for this 2022-23 campaign?

A: We always want to improve by 1% every single day. We haven’t won a league title since I’ve been here and long before so that would be big and getting back to state is always a big goal as well. We talk about that in practice, Manhattan is just down the road, and we’d like to make that our second home.

Wabaunsee will open their 2022-23 season on Friday, December 2nd when the Chargers take on Northern Heights.

For continuing coverage of Charger basketball all season long, stay tuned to the Little Apple Post.