Back on the Court

Fair Grove High School’s girls and boys basketball team are starting preparation for this year’s season.

Isaac Walters (11) has been playing basketball since he was in the seventh grade. Walters said, “One of our big strengths is that we are really close on and off the court. We know each other really well, so it makes us have good chemistry while on the court.”

Fair Grove’s Boys Basketball team is not the only one doing well this season. The Girls Basketball team seems to be making improvements this year as well. Abbey Green (10) has been on the Fair Grove’s Girls Basketball team since the seventh grade, like Walters. Apparently most of the girls on the basketball team started playing at a young age. Green said, “We have all played together for a long time, most of us have known and played with each other since kindergarten so having such a tight-knit group works out well for our communication.” 

Coach Tucker has recently taken over this year as the head coach and has seen the strengths and weaknesses of the boys basketball team. “I like our quickness and our overall basketball IQ,” Tucker said, “These are really fun kids to be around, and they want to get better every day we are in the gym.” 

Not every team is perfect, however, and both teams are working hard to spot any weaknesses and get rid of them. Walters said, “I’d say that our main weakness is that we don’t always have the best communication at times. If we get down in a game, a lot of us will stop talking while we play.”

The boys basketball team is not the only team that is able to recognize weaknesses that they have. The girls basketball team is also able to pick out any flaw and discard it. Green said, “We are such a young team with not a lot of Varsity basketball experience even though four of our freshmen started last year and gained some, one of them being myself.” 

The boys and girls basketball teams seem to be making progress rather quickly. Tucker remarked that the boys basketball team is allowed three hours per week to prepare for the upcoming season, He said, “We spend these 3 hours conditioning, shooting, doing skill work and playing.” 

Jennifer Talbert, the girls head basketball coach, said that many of the girls on the team are involved in fall sports. Talbert said, “We love seeing them compete in the fall because we know that those experiences will help them as we get into basketball season. The girls not playing a fall sport come to pre-season 1-2x a week. We do a lot of fundamental drills and games like conditioning drills. Our fall sports athletes come in once a week and get a lot of shooting in.” 

Nevertheless, both teams are ecstatic to start their season. Come see the boys basketball team at their first game on November 19, 2022 at Clever High School in Clever, Missouri. The girls basketball team has a game on November 19, 2022 at Kickapoo High School in Springfield, Missouri.