As VHSL continues to reshape the look of high school sports, Manchester basketball continues to work hard in anticipation of their upcoming season. It’s set to start in December  due to COVID, contrary to last year’s start in November. Many athletes were initially hurt and stressed about how COVID tampered with their schedule, but over time they became accustomed to it and actually learned to adapt to it. Joel Moody, a junior and varsity player said, “To be honest, I don’t care when it starts as long as we have a season. I don’t know why but playing later seems more exciting.” Even the JV head coach Rashaun Alexander said that “they handled everything very well. They took safe measures before moving forward”. 

During the summer in between seasons, the coaches would normally come together and run open gyms on the court, but due to new regulations, that just couldn’t happen this summer. That closure, combined with the fact that there’s a period of time where coaches aren’t allowed to communicate with players, made it harder to build chemistry over the summer. The team lost a decent chunk of their roster due to graduations and transfers, so they needed to utilize all the time they had. 

Noah Richardson-Keys, a senior returning varsity player spoke on this situation saying, “this season is definitely going to be one for the books. I am glad for the players that have left and started their own journey. But this is just another opportunity to bond with other players on and off the court.”

 Mr. Alexander came up with a way to keep the remaining pieces of the team together over the summer while adhering to new regulations. “I’ve been motivating players to work out at home and outside,” he said. “Also we have been doing some conditioning the last month. We just have to be more mentally prepared this season.”  Players like Noah Richardson-Keys, a senior returning varsity player still wish they could “go in the gyms and workout as a team.” But his brother Zion Richardson-Keys, a sophomore  returning junior varsity player got other players together over the summer to “meet up at an outside court and hoop and get in a little drill work here and there.”