The Winona boys basketball team won only six games this season with a young team, but that was definitely an improvement over a year ago.
“We went from winless to six wins this season,” said Coach Presley Coleman. “We were a lot more competitive this year. We had some close games that could have gone either way.
“Defensively, we improved, especially after Christmas. We were able to play the kind of basketball I like to play, full court pressure.”
The Tigers had only one senior, Dre Bays, in the starting lineup.
Jalen Daniels, a junior, led the team in scoring the first half of the season at 15.7 points per game, but missed the second half due to grades. “If he pulls his grades up he’ll be back next year,” Coleman said.
Other key contributors included sophomore Sean Merritt, who averaged 8.1 points and a team leading 5.9 rebounds, freshman James Shelton (7.5 points), junior An’darious Coffey (6 points) and junior Trey Glover.
“He doesn’t score a lot, but he does a lot of little things. He’s very unselfish,” Coleman said of Glover.
Younger players who came on late in the season included freshman Dennis Turner, freshman Jekeyvion Burnley, freshman Mykel McGee and sophomore DaKarrian Crawford.
Crawford came off the bench to score eight points in a season-ending 72-55 loss to Forest at the Region 5-3A tournament. “He’ll be another upperclassman to watch next year,” Coleman said.
Areas that need to improve are half-court offense, three-point shooting and turnovers.
“Definitely our half-court offense will have to improve,” Coleman said. “We often got stagnant in the half court.
“Our three-point shooting will have to improve and toward the end of the season we had too many turnovers. We have to do a better job taking care of the ball.”
The Tigers will have an opportunity to address those issues during summer league games. Coleman expects to have all his players.
