The time has finally come, basketball season is finally here. The season was officially supposed to start on saturday, November 14 against Morton Ranch, but due to positive Covid-19 cases at Morton Ranch the game was canceled. The new, official start date for the season was tuesday, November 17 against Alief Hastings, which Langham won 73-40. 

The Varsity team last year lost in the first round of playoffs to Vandergrift, but this year there are bigger goals. With only 5 players returning from last year’s squad this team is extremely young. “We have a younger team, but we also have a lot more quickness and depth” senior point guard Jay Renchie said. 

Despite the young and inexperienced team, they still have big aspirations.

Although the team consists mostly of newcomers, they have brought back some key players from last year’s squad. For instance, Junior Paul Oyewale and Senior Chris Wisemen are two players that have a huge impact on this team. Both players are key to this team’s success because of how dominant they are. The team’s game plan has also been based around these two guys.

“During practice we have been focusing on Chris and Paul, two of our best players, and feeding the ball into them,” senior wing Makale Mingo said.

The transition to a varsity sport can be extremely hard to handle.

“It’s definitely more difficult, it’s the same game but the speed of the game has been cranked up,” junior Josh Nolan said.

Although the transition has been hard for some players, the returners have been doing all they can to make that transition easier.

“I have just been trying to show them ways to read the game and not make the same mistakes that I did last year on varsity,” Renchie said. 

But he’s not the only one.

“I’ve been trying to help them on plays that they don’t know,” junior Paul Oyewale said.

There have been many obstacles that the team has already overcome, but one still standing in the way is the CoronaVirus. The players have found the masks very frustrating especially during practice.

“Having to deal with corona has been tuff, you have to be careful around everybody,” Mingo said.

While the team has faced their many challenges, they will overcome them.

“I truly believe that we have a chance to be great this year,” senior Chris Wiseman said.