Kingston poised to start season Friday
Tigers looking to prove they’re more than Moore
Emphasis on unity as Kingston High prepares to open season against Shaker in Lansingburgh tournament.
KINGSTON, N.Y. >> Kingston High’s boys basketball team is aiming for a big season, but don’t think of the Tigers as senior All-Star Brian Moore and company.
“It is not me, it’s we. It’s all about us,” said Kingston coach Ron Kelder, who begins his 23rd season at the helm.
“I like our energy. I like our enthusiasm. I like our focus. I feel like each day we’re making that stride to get better. I feel like each day we’re starting to get what our goal is,” he said.
That goal is to improve, play together as a team and win the program’s first Section 9, Class AA championship in six years.
The Tigers were 16-6 last season, losing to eventual champion Pine Bush in the semifinals.
Kingston gets an early start to the campaign, taking on Shaker 5 p.m. Friday in a post-Thanksgiving Tournament at Lansingburgh. The Tigers play either the host Knights or Bishop Maginn on Saturday.
Moore started last season quietly, but quickly proved he was the real deal: setting single-game school records for made field goals and 3-pointers and averaging 24.2 points per game en route to the fourth-best (533 points) season tally in Tiger boys history.
“He’s a scorer. We saw that last year. He has to be willing to trust that if he moves in the right direction to occupy somebody that that next guy is going to make a play,” Kelder said.
There is plenty of size returning with seniors Chris Bamba (6-foot5), Daivel Jackson (6-4), Jimmy Moot (6-4) and Garrett Warnecke (6-2) all back.
There are seven newcomers in senior Amir Ridge, sophomore Shy’quan Royal and juniors Mahlo CJ Faircloth, Donte Groppuso, Daiveyon Jackson, Dylan Perry and Brady Short.
Ridge came to the open gyms and played his way onto the varsity. Perry’s quickness will help on the defensive side.
“We got a good mix of shooters and we got a good mix of length and size,” Kelder noted.
“When you got Bamba, Daivel, Jimmy, Amir (6-3) and Garrett — that’s a tremendous lot of length on the court,” he remarked. “Then you go to Brian, Shy’quan, Brady, CJ, Dylan, Donte, you got a bunch of guys that can shoot it, fill it up, move without it. I’m not saying the bigs can’t also shoot, but they have their role and everything else. We can legitimately put 6-4, 6-5, 6-4, 6-0 and 6-1 on the floor.
“We’re going to be long. We’re going to be athletic. We’re going to be able to cover the floor, but it continues to be, ‘Do we understand our role as a teammate? Not as an individual, but what am I doing to make that guy over there better?’”
What Kelder has been preaching all preseason in spacing and trust.
“The big thing we’re working on offensively is having spacing with our length and our size and our athleticism,” he said. “We want to space the floor and utilize it. I feel like we’re making some really good movement towards that. It’s one of the more athletic, lengthy teams that we’ve had here since I’ve been coaching.”
Kelder is just 11 away from his 300th career victory.
“We tweaked a few things. It’s definitely different in that the middle of the floor will be way more open than with past teams that I’ve had,” he said. “It’s utilizing the kind of player that we have. We got a lot of guys that can cut to the rim, put it on the floor.
We’re a face-up type team. We’re not a back-to-the-basket team even though we’re long.
“When my bigs face the rim, they’re really successful. When we have our back to it and we don’t use our proper footwork, then we’re just average. When we’re catching and facing the rim and we’re doing good things, then we can be pretty dangerous.
“As good as we were at times last year and as good as I felt we could be, there wasn’t that trust factor. There wasn’t that belief in each other that everyone’s going to get it done,” Kelder admitted. “I think we’re making strives toward trusting each other here and really understanding each other.
“We got real flat at times offensively. We never became the defensive team I felt we could have been. This year, that’s got to change. If we trust each other, then I think we can be pretty good.
“We’re running an offense that’s really just based on space and reacting to the guy ahead of you. If a guy leaves a space, you got to fill that space — just court awareness and spacing and play. We’re going to be as good as our spacing and our trust for each other. If we trust each other and we react in space ...”
Royal is likely the point guard, keeping Moore as the off guard, he role he maintained when the Tigers had Chris Wright and Damani Thomas last year.
“I need Brian in space, working up the floor. I don’t want him stressed having the ball in his hands so much and everybody just keying and staring at him. I want him to get the ball off of movement and be more of a threat immediately when he does catch it. He’s more valuable as an off-guard.”
A lineup Kelder was considering as of last week had Moore and Royal as guards and Warnecke, Moot and Daivel Jackson in the frontcourt with Bamba, Ridge, Perry, Short, Faircloth, Gropppuso and Daiveyon Jackson coming off the bench.
“It’s nice to have enough options,” Kelder remarked. “I got three guys that can make the 5 (power forward). I got like four guys that can play the 4 (small forward). I got eight guys that can play the 2 and 3. I got enough. I’m working on three or four guys that can run the point. The way we’re running our system right now, the 2, 3 and the 4 are all basically the same positions.”
Pine Bush is rebuilding, so Kingston’s prime contender should be Middletown, which the Tigers face for the first time on the road on Dec. 19.
SCHEDULE
NOV.—23, vs. Shaker at Lansingburgh Tournament, 5 p.m.; 24, at Lansingburgh Tournament DEC.—5, SCHENECTADY, 7 p.m.; 7, BURKE CATHOLIC, 7 p.m.; 11, at Warwick, 6:30 p.m.; 19, at Middletown, 6:30 p.m.; 21, PINE BUSH, 7 p.m.; 28, vs. Poughkeepsie at New York Institute of Technology, 6 p.m. JAN.—2, VALLEY CENTRAL, 7 p.m.; 7, at Newburgh, 7 p.m.; 10, MONROE-WOODBURY; 12, POUGHKEEPSIE, 6 p.m.; 16, at Schenectady, 6 p.m.; 18, at Washingtonville, 6:30 p.m.; 20, at Troy, 3 p.m.; 27, vs. Rockland in Officials vs. Cancer Tournament at SUNY New Paltz, 2:15 p.m. FEB.—8, MIDDLETOWN, 7 p.m.; 11, at Pine Bush, 6:30 p.m.; 13, NEWBURGH, 7 p.m.; 19, at Monroe-Woodbury, 6:30 p.m. Home games in CAPS.