Blazers use summer season to integrate new talent.
By Mike Miazga
Correspondent
There are many new faces on the Addison Trail boys basketball team.
And that’s no worry for longtime Blazers coach Brendan Lyons, who graduated the vast majority of players from his 2016-2017 squad.
“This kind of reminded me of my first summer with the program where we had new kids,” he said. “We graduated pretty much everybody from last year. Everybody has new roles and it’s pretty much a clean slate. A lot of different guys contributed in the summer. I thought we did OK this summer. Our numbers were good and we ended up playing fewer games than we have in the past. The summer is for getting guys reps and getting a feel for what we have going into the new season. We accomplished those things.”
The only player returning with significant varsity experience for the Blazers is Mike Pudlo, who averaged about 10 minutes of playing time last year and averaged 3.5 points and 2.0 rebounds per contest.
“He’s our only real consistent contributor coming back on the varsity level,” said Lyons. “We have some other returners who saw a ton of time on the JV last year.”
Lyons said this year’s team will have a different look to it. “Based on what we saw in the summer, this team will have a different feel,” he said. “The tallest guy we had in the summer was 6-4. We’ll have to do some things differently to compete.”
Addison Trail hosted eight one-night shootouts on the varsity where each team played three games per night. The Blazers also headed over to District 88 neighbor Willowbrook for a shootout.
“That was our summer,” said Lyons. “We played 33 games all in all. We were down about 15 games from the last two years.”
Lyons saw plenty of positives heading into the 2017-2018 season. “It’s a very coachable group,” he said. “We played to what our personnel dictated. I thought we shot well from the outside and defensively we made some positive strides and pretty much played man-to-man defense. We’re not going to rule out playing different defenses based on what will be readily apparent with our lack of size.”
Pudlo missed part of the summer due to injury. “We liked what he brought to the table when he was in there,” the coach said.
Lyons also was impressed with seniors Connor Palesch, AJ Parnell and Albert White.
“Connor shot it well all summer,” said Lyons. “He was shooting seven, eight and nine 3s a game. He is working on developing his all-around game. But he provided consistency from the arc. AJ had a rough summer. He’s a three-sport athlete with football, basketball and baseball. His plate always was full. We took it easy on him. He showed glimpses of being a major contributor for us. Albert is the younger brother of Tyler and Taylor and his game has grown by leaps and bounds. He competes hard and he plays hard. We never worry about his effort. He grinds every time he’s out there. It was nice to see those three seniors in particular have strong summers.”
Younger players Adam Mehmeti and JT Daniels also played well. “They both had good summers,” said Lyons.
Lyons is looking forward to the continued development of this group once the 2017-2018 season starts.
“It’s definitely going to be a mix of moving pieces early in the season,” he said. “We will find combos that will work. Our size is going to be different this year, but we will find ways to make up for it in other areas.”
