Coming off a tumultuous, covid-affected 2021 campaign and with a first-year head coach in the mix, Rye Neck’s basketball team may have had a few question marks coming into the season. But so far, at least, the Panthers appear to be answering the bell. With a 44-30 win over the Leffell School on Dec. 13, Rye Neck has jumped out to a 4-1 start and hopes to be heating up as league play looms in the coming weeks.
Mike Denman, who took over the Panthers’ program this year, said he has been pleased thus far with his team’s performance, despite the fact that his new role—coupled with an abbreviated offseason—means that there is still work to be done in terms of determining the squad’s identity.
“It has been tough; we only had a few practices before starting up with games, so I’m still getting a sense of what everyone can do on the floor,” he acknowledged. “So in terms of that, figuring out rotations, and how everyone fits, that’s still a work in progress.”
Despite the fact that the team is still settling in, there have been plenty of positive signs in the team’s 4-1 start. Forward AJ Hutt has led the team in scoring in all but one of its wins, but Denman said he is still looking to see a little more cohesion on the offensive end as his players continue to become more familiar with their responsibilities in new offensive sets.
“One thing that we’ve stressed is being a little more patient,” he said. “We need to be taking the best shot possible as opposed to the first shot.”
Denman also said that the team’s lone loss—a 47-45 heartbreaker to undefeated Edgemont that was decided on a three-point buzzer-beater by Mike Landes—has been serving as a teachable moment as the Panthers find their identity.
“We’ve gone back and looked at that game, focusing on some of the plays from the first and second quarters that put us in a position to get beat on the final possession,” he said. “But we were able to compete with an undefeated team, we know we could have won that game and the hope is that if we play them or another team of that caliber down the road, we’ll be able to correct those mistakes and come away with a win.”
The Panthers will have just two more games before the end of the year—another tilt with the Leffell School on Dec. 16 and a matchup with Tuckahoe on Dec. 22—and Denman believes that this next stretch will be integral in determining what the ceiling is for his squad.
“We’re not there yet,” he said. “But hopefully we will figure it out sometime in January and rack up even more wins.”
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