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Sports

With Loss of Top Scorers, Whitman Boys Basketball Looks to Change Personality

Vikings will look inside, rely on defense after losing top six scorers from last season

 boys basketball coach Chris Lun realizes the challenge that lies ahead.

A year after going 16-7 and reaching the Class 4A West semifinals, the Vikings head into this season looking to replace their top six scorers from last year's team.

"We have a lot of shoes to fill and we know we lost a lot," Lun said. "But we have a lot of size this year, which hopefully works to our advantage."

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And unlike last season, when Whitman went primarily with an up-tempo, guard-oriented attack with four or even five guards on the court at a time, the Vikings will look to take full advantage of their size this year.

Forward Daniel Voigt (6-foot-5) and center Ian Ross (6-foot-4) are among seven Vikings who are 6-foot-4 or taller.

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"This year we want to use our post play a lot more," Ross said. "Last year, we didn't have a lot of size and were more perimeter-oriented. We're going to slow the offense down and try to take advantage of smaller teams."

Charlie Waugh led Whitman last season with 15.6 points per game while Ross Koehn (12.2 points per game) and Demetrius Cook (11.0) also posted double-digit scoring averages. Eddie Wytkind (8.2), Ervin Cook (7.0) and Sam Walsh (5.6) combined to average another 20.8 points.

But all six are gone and the Vikings will be forced to replace 86-percent of last year's scoring output.

Voigt (4.8) and guard Bryan Joel (2.6) are Whitman's two leading returning scorers. Both should give the Vikings two capable outside shooters, which Joel envisions complementing Whitman's inside game.

"Within the half-court, our tempo is going to change," Joel said. "We're going to implement the big guys more this year, but we're still going to try to keep it up-tempo, run a little bit and shoot some."

Nonetheless, Joel admits it won't be easy replacing last season's top scorers.

"Scoring consistently is still a little bit of a concern," Joel said. "We have all the tools, but we still don't have a lot of experience. The question is going to be if we can put points on the board every night after losing [several] players that could just take their man one-on-man to the basket."

Still, while he anticipates some early inconsistency from the offense, Ross is extremely optimistic about Whitman's defense, which has been a consistent bright spot leading up to the season.

"Defense is going to be our strong suit this year," Ross said. "We've had some trouble scoring in summer and fall league, but the defense has been there consistently. We're further along than we were last year at this same point in time. The size definitely helps with playing zone, but our big men are also pretty mobile so we can play man-to-man too."

Lun offered a similar assessment.

"We're going to be a very good half-court defensive team," Lun said. "We're going to spend a lot of time working on our 2-1-2 matchup [zone] and our half-court man-to-man principles."

And even without last year's offensive prowess, Lun isn't expecting too significant of a drop-off from last year's team. He still expects the Vikings to be competitive in what he anticipates will be a wide open 4A West region.

"The teams [in our region] lost just as much as we did," Lun said. "So we're confident that if we come in and work hard that we have just as good of a shot to win our region as anybody else. I think we're using that as motivation going into the season and are going to be disappointed if we're not as competitive as we expect to be."

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