2024-25 Whiteoak Wildcats Boys Basketball Preview

The Whiteoak Wildcats will be led by Greg Patton for a second year, and this 2024-25 season, the Wildcats want to continue to build on what they learned last season as they look to keep battling on the court.

The Wildcats are coming off a season where they finished 6-18 overall and 5-8 in the Southern Hills Athletic Conference, a fourth-place finish in the Division II standings.

WHS has five players who started games last season, with three players starting all the games played, while two made starts in half the games played.

Whiteoak has three seniors this season, those being Zander Roades (guard), Aiden Crowe (forward) and Jackson Tedford (forward).

Juniors for Whiteoak include Sawyer Blair (guard), Brady Brandenburg (forward/guard) and Zach Igo (guard).

The sophomores this season are Jonah Michael (forward/guard), Christian Hite (guard), Jason Gaskins (guard) and Caden Butler (forward). The lone freshman is Christopher Wessner (guard).
Of those players, returning full-time starters are Roades, Blair and Brandenburg, while Igo and Crowe made starts in half the games last season.

Roades last season was an OPSWA Special Mention All-District selection as he played in 24 games, finishing with 8.7 points per game, 1.8 rebounds per game, 2.5 assists per game and 1.3 steals per game. His overall totals were 208 points, 43 rebounds, 59 assists and 30 steals.

Blair in ’23-24 finished with 248 points, 105 rebounds, 59 assists, 34 steals and five blocks, with season averages of 10.3 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 2.5 apg and 1.4 spg, as Blair was a Coaches Honorable Mention All-District selection last season.

Brandenburg last season ended with 236 points, 169 rebounds, 16 assists, 16 steals and one block. His averages included 9.8 ppg and 7.0 rpg.

Crowe finished the ’23-24 season with 61 points, 55 rebounds, 14 assists, nine steals and two blocks. Igo last season had 57 points, 53 rebounds, 14 assists and 21 steals.

“I feel like the head of our attack will be Roades, Blair and Brandenburg,” Patton said. “I also believe we have good depth this year having Crowe, Igo, Michael and Tedford to lean on, as all have been playing well. We will be experienced and have a pretty deep bench.”
The Wildcats last season in SHAC play averaged 47.1 ppg and allowed 53.6 ppg, and overall in 24 games they averaged 46.3 ppg and allowed 57.7 ppg.

Graduated from last season is Weston Blair, who averaged 10.8 ppg and 7.8 rpg, as he was an All-SHAC, Coaches Third-Team All-District and OPSWA Third-Team All-District selection.

With this being a new season, the Wildcats have been putting in a lot of work to become a better basketball team, including playing tough teams in scrimmages.

“We had a good first scrimmage against a couple of tough and physical teams,” Patton said. “The offseason has been a lot of weight training and basketball skill work, which has shown to be paying off watching us play.

“We have gotten better on the defensive end of the floor as well as adjusting to the speed of the game, but I would like to see our intensity pick up and just keep improving every day. With that said, I’m looking for us to just compete every game. I feel like we can be a team that could surprise people this year.”

As always, the SHAC is going to be a strong conference with tough matchups each and every night, and Patton knows his team has to be ready and focused to play each game.

Last season, the SHAC Division II standings included Fairfield at the top of the conference with an 11-2 record, followed by Manchester (7-6), Fayetteville (7-6), Whiteoak (5-8) and Ripley (0-13).

“The SHAC will be extremely tough every game. The goal will always be to compete for league champs, but there can be no letdowns against anyone,” Patton said. “We are picked to finish fourth on the small side, so we have to outwork everyone.”

Whiteoak’s non-conference schedule includes the following games: vs. East Clinton, at Bethel-Tate, at McClain, at Felicity, vs. Northwest, vs. Clay (Chad Hudson Classic at Fairfield High School), vs. Wellston (at Dave Young Classic at North Adams High School), at Clinton-Massie and vs. Clermont Northeastern.

“We have a tough non-conference schedule against schools that all have football,” Patton said. “Those schools are always very physical, which helps us tremendously through the season and heading into tournament time.”

Assistant coaches for WHS are Cole Shearer and Wes Blair.

“We are looking forward to the season and will look to improve on our record from last year,” Patton said.

Whiteoak starts the 2024-25 season Friday, Nov. 29 at home vs. the Ripley Blue Jays in SHAC action.

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