2015 Preview: How will Hillsboro Indians gel during varsity rebuild?

Losing four starters from a team that had seven wins one season ago, the Hillsboro Indians for the 2015-16 season will basically have a total rebuild as most of their roster will consist of sophomores.

The Indians will have three seniors on what is expected to be an eight-player rotation, as they are a program that is coming off a season where they were 7-15 overall and 3-11 in the South Central Ohio League.

Entering his second year at the helm of the Indians is Bruce Miles, and for him this year, he knows his team has a very tough schedule of games, not only in the SCOL, but away from league play as well.

This season, the Indians are scheduled to face teams such as Goshen, Western Brown, Fairfield, Paint Valley, Waverly, Adena, Lynchburg-Clay and Eastern Brown in their non-conference schedule.

“Our non-league schedule is really tough this year,” Miles said. “We’ve added Adena, who returns three or four starters to a team that was .500 last year. We are also playing Waverly, who is in our sectional, and they were young last year. Those games will be tough.

“There is also Lynchburg-Clay, and they are returning just about everybody from an extremely talented team. Our schedule is daunting, but we are looking forward to the challenge.”

As for the Indians’ roster, their three seniors are Jacob Deatley, Logan Kibler and DJ Brown, as Brown is now a three-year varsity player for the Indians. The sophomores for the Indians are Matthew Ryan, Marshall Ward, Kelton Anderson, Phillip Mycroft and Cameron Reed.

“We are excited to have Jacob back as he was a year removed from the program, and Logan was a letterman for us last season,” Miles said. “We have no juniors on the varsity at this point, but we have five sophomores, and we are really relying on those guys.

“We are going to lean on DJ. The past couple years, he’s been that role player who is getting rebounds and doing the dirty work, and now he’s thrust into the spotlight, and I’m interested in seeing how he handles that. He’s done a great job in the preseason being a leader.

“I’m also looking forward to seeing how Marshall handles the point guard responsibilities. Last year, we went back and forth with that position, but Marshall is a true point guard. I love his game. He competes every night. He’s just a sophomore, so he’s being thrown to the wolves, so to speak.”

Also for each team, including the Indians, there are always ways they want to improve from the previous season, and Miles spoke about that. The Indians have to replace their leading scorers from last season in Alex Van Zant, who averaged 12.5 points per game in 21 games, and Zach Young who averaged 14.2 points per game in 21 games played.

Brown averaged 6.3 points per game as a junior.

“Offensively, we need to improve,” he said. “I think defensively, we competed each night, and our defense kept us in games, but we need to score points.”

Even with the amount of youth the Indians have on their roster, the preseason and summer games went well, according to Miles. It gave his team a chance to get used to playing as a unit, as they must be able to replace all but one player from their starting lineup last season.

“We had a great offseason,” Miles said. “Phillip showed a lot of growth. He dedicated himself to the weight room and worked on his outside game. We know what he brings to the post, but he has expanded to the three-point line.

“D.J. also had a great summer, as did Marshall … all those guys were with me all summer. They were in the gym, working on their strength and their individual games. I was really pleased with the effort I saw this summer.”

With every young team comes a variety of expectations, but for this Indians group, they know what lies ahead of them this season, as they’ll face teams in the SCOL who have Division I athletes, teams that are built to win now and teams that are usually in the running at the top of the league.

For the Indians, who last won an SCOL title in 2012, they are looking to get back to the top of the league, but they know it will take some time, and even more than that, hard work and dedication for not only this upcoming season, but in future seasons as well.

“It is early right now, but we are just trying to find ourselves as we were last year,” Miles said. “We are defining roles and seeing where everyone fits in. Our motto each night will be to outwork each opponent, because we don’t have the most athletic or overwhelming lineup. Our biggest guy is 6-2, so we are going to have to outwork teams on the defensive end.

“Rebounding and creating turnovers will be key for us. Our league will be tough with teams like Wilmington, Chillicothe, Miami Trace, Washington Court House. Each night when you go play in our league, you know it will be tough.”

The Indians might look a little different on the court this season compared to last year with the way they will run their offense.

“With Phillip, we have a true post player, and with D.J., he’s more of a stretch four for us,” Miles said. “He’ll be able to step up and make the perimeter jump shot for us, so we’ll run a lot of four-out, one-in motion in working with Phillip in the post and letting our guards create on the perimeter.

“I’m really excited about our shooting ability from the perimeter. I believe we’ll shoot the ball better from the perimeter than we did last year, and that will be extremely helpful.”

With all the new talent set to make the starting lineup this season, replacing four starters is a difficult task for Miles, but again, with this being his second season in the program, the players know what to expect this year, and there is more time for figuring out who fits where best.

“We are just trying to find the guys who fit where we want them,” Miles said. “I told the guys at the start of preseason, we know what we’ll get out of the senior who has been here for three years, and I’m trying to find four more guys to put out there and have the best five guys out there each and every night.

“We’ve mixed and matched lineups all preseason, and I’m pretty close to where I’m going to go, but we’ll have to have guys who can come off the bench and give us what we need. Whether that be a bucket or defensively, we have to find guys who can give us good minutes off the bench. With that being said, there are some guys down in JV who have been working with me, so I do have a sophomore, Britton Haines, and freshman, Josh Keets, who could be playing sometimes depending on how they progress.”