The varsity boys basketball team had its first home appearance since the start of the season with a 52-27 win against Hutto on Dec. 1. With the victory against Hutto, Coach Joe Duffield and team captain senior Marquan Hampston are prepared for a good season.

“Last year we had the best team ever in Vista Ridge history and this year, in my opinion, were even better, so I’m excited about that and how far we can go this season,”  Hampston said.

This year the varsity team has gained four new players having lost some of their senior varsity teammates from last year.

“That’s always a transition in high school sports and high school basketball,” Duffield said. “I’m very excited to have nine varsity returns from last year, so that’s big having that returning experience, and a couple new players that we had from JV are really good additions as well.”  

The basketball program has two games a week and has to practice daily for each and every one of its games in the season.

“In the season, we normally have two games a week, and we practice about three hours a day,” Duffield said. “A lot of extra time goes into film and weights and doing other things similar to that.”

The team now is working on its strong points and weaknesses for the team to become the team it can be.

“Our strong points is that were experienced, and we play together well and have good chemistry has a team,” Hampston said. “Our weakness is that sometimes we think we are better than we really are even though we haven’t really done anything yet.”

For Duffield, the upside to being the varsity coach is actually being able to interact with the students and the players and seeing them become a team.

“The biggest challenge is getting players to buy in and accept their roles, playing together and then pushing the players to do thing they may not always want to do but will help the team be successful,” Duffield said. “I like the being the coach because I get to interact with young men and helping teach them life lessons through the game of basketball that will help them later on in life.”