THS opens 15-5A play today at Longview

TEXARKANA, Texas — Texas High’s basketball team isn’t quite at full strength, but the Tigers begin District 15-5A play today at Longview.

With the UIL having Class 5A and 6A football teams start a month after the smaller classifications, and with THS playing two rounds deep in the playoffs, the Tigers will begin league play on the hardwood without its full roster set.

“Up to this point, we’ve had no seniors and no returning varsity players in the gym,” Tigers head coach Jacob Skinner said. “We’ve had 12 players, all sophomores and juniors, who either played on last year’s ninth grade team or the junior varsity. We’ve done some good things so far and developed a lot of depth, but the reality is when you don’t have a senior in the gym, you kind of lack some leadership.”

So far, playing half the schedule against varsity teams and half against junior varsity, the Tigers have lost just one game. Some of the players who have been with the team will remain at the varsity level, and some will move down to the junior varsity once all the players have reported for basketball.

“Obviously, a few of the guys we’ve been playing will stay on the varsity once we get all our football guys come in,” Skinner said. “We’ve allowed these guys to play and have been coaching them just like we would a varsity team. Friday night, with the football team’s playoff loss to Crosby, we know we’ll be getting some of our guys out this week and some next week.”

Three varsity players returned to the gym for practice on Saturday and played in a win over Tyler Chapel Hill that night. Texas High goes to Longview tonight to open District 15-5A play against the Lobos.

Seniors Ben DePriest and Zane Dodson, and junior Michael Thomas were the three who have already joined the basketball team out of football.

“We’re back to half-strength, and we’re expecting a few more football guys to come out,” Skinner said. “Caleb Arnold was a starter for us as a junior last year. Braylon Stewart played for us at the varsity level as a sophomore last year. And we’re anticipating a couple more will join us. I communicated to the football guys that if they wanted to take the five days the UIL requires and come back after the Christmas break, that they could do so.

“Those guys have been grinding since June, and the season went way longer than it normally does. We don’t want to rush them into the gym.”

The Tigers graduated three seniors from last year’s squad. THS finished 16-16 with a loss in the first round to top-ranked Lancaster.

“We feel pretty good about where our program is because we started last year with aligning our instruction at all levels,” Skinner said. “Whether you were a freshman, jayvee or varsity player, you were going to learn the same offensive system. We’re better for it this year.

In our last game, we turned it over 31 percent of the time and won by 17 points against a team that’s been playing really well. Obviously, we will cut down on our turnovers — that’s something that’s correctable, as are some of the other things we need to improve on.

“Once we get our full roster and our legs underneath us, we have the opportunity to set the expectations pretty high this year. We’ll have a lot of pieces back, and we’re trying to align our program so that we reload instead of rebuild. I feel good about us reloading with what we have coming back and some underclassmen who can step in and know our system.”

Texas High hosts Carthage in a non-district game on New Year’s Eve before picking up the district schedule, again, on January 2 at home against Hallsville.