The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“It’s all basics again this year”
by Than Acuff
Despite the long bus rides, weeks and weeks of practice, months of preparation and a lack of wins, coach Mike Moran is back at the helm of the Crested Butte Titans girls basketball team.
Moran came onto the scene three years ago after years of coaching an extremely successful program in Flagstaff, Ariz. While he knew the Titans were raw as basketball players, he understood and appreciated their innate athleticism and determination after watching them battle through a season of volleyball the fall before he took over the basketball team.
Since then, it’s been a struggle as the Titans are in one of the toughest 2A leagues in the state. Moran continues to get his team up to speed on fundamentals before he can take the program to the next level. As a result, they tallied just one win last year but Moran is back and committed to building the program, one small step at a time.
“It’d be easy to walk away and go fishing but I can’t give up on these kids,” says Moran. “I’m going to stay here until I get things going. I’ve never been a quitter and I just love the game so much.”
Moran has Lis Collins back as well to help out as the assistant coach for another season of hard work with the fledgling program.
“I’m so excited to have her back,” says Moran. “She’s probably one of the best assistant coaches I’ve ever had. The girls really look up to her.”
Moran knows that if the team is truly going to progress, much of the work needs to be done in the off-season. Unfortunately, the girls never followed through with workouts over the summer or during the fall.
“They didn’t play enough basketball and I’m a little disappointed in that, but I’ve gotten used to it,” says Moran. “The kids have a lot going on and as long as they give me 100 percent, then I’m happy.”
The 2016-2017 season officially started on Friday, November 11 and Moran has 15 girls out this year. It’s an interesting mix with a strong junior class, three seniors that have been with the program for their entire high school career, a couple of new players who could contribute, and a host of up-and-coming underclassmen.
That said, Moran continues to work on fundamentals with his team during the pre-season.
“It’s all basics again this year,” says Moran. “We’re in here working on fundamentals and getting better one day at a time.”
In addition, Moran continues to work on the defensive schemes he started last year and making the offense easier for the girls to understand so they learn the game, rather than how to run specific plays.
“We’re really stepping up things on the defensive end,” says Moran. “I’m trying to simplify the offense for them this year—you can over-coach them.”
They got their first test on Friday and Saturday, November 18-19 with a set of scrimmages, starting with Cotopaxi. The Titans were missing several of their starters from last year and struggled in their first scrimmage against Cotopaxi as Moran was forced to play some of the younger players.
“We were not ready to go,” says Moran.
Fortunately, they recovered to play a much better game in the second scrimmage, generating points inside and out and getting back on defense much faster.
“We’re starting to learn how to shoot the ball, which is key, and we played toe-to-toe with Cotopaxi in the second game,” says Moran.
With their annual tournament in South Park coming up Friday and Saturday, December 2-3, Moran now has the girls focused on three simple offensive schemes and making sure their defense is doing what it should.
“The tournament will show us a lot—that’ll be really big for us,” says Moran.
As for the season, Moran remains conservative on his expectations as far as wins and losses are concerned. Almost everyone in their league has starters returning and the league will be as tough as ever.
“We’re going to be better but we’re still going to struggle,” says Moran. “It’s going to take a little more time still, but we’ll be playing hard and enjoying ourselves.”
