Feet ready to chase title with 4 returning starters

Hunter Foutch is part of a veteran-laden Webb team that faces a much-tougher region schedule.
(T-G Photo by Jasen Richardson)

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Minus one senior starter from last year, the Division II-A East/Middle Region runner-up is geared up to pounce the court again and take it up another notch.

Hunter Foutch, Miles Davis, Bil Carter, Luke Baum and Logan Burchett are fully healthy and with their eyes on a better season than before.

"It's a good group," coach Jeff Mitchell said. "Our numbers are up, so that's helpful in practice. We've got 20 kids out here practicing basketball, so we should have a good, solid 10 or so varsity guys and 10 or so J.V. guys, which is a change from last year, where we only had 12 total. These guys have played a lot of varsity games together. There is quite a bit of experience with that group."

The squad did some conditioning in the weight room during the offseason, as well as attending two team camps at Wilson Central and Gallatin. The Feet are the healthiest they have been in a while and continue to build on the game plan executed last season.

Davis has gotten some more practice behind the arc, unfamiliar territory last season. This will add to his already dominant game underneath. Burchett and Foutch will shuffle the plays and facilitate the passing game while getting inside for scoring opportunities. Baum and Carter will post up, work the arc and demand the game underneath.

The paramount shift will be on the defensive side of the court. The Feet look to change conservative containment to a full court press and really pressure the opposition. The offense is beginning to find continuity after last season's injuries which staggered their chance at finding their offensive stability. These rely on the health of the team, which has added quite a few more players.

* "We want to pressure more than we did last year," Mitchell said. "We did not have a lot of depth, so we were constantly playing the foul game. Last year we played a little more conservative style of defense and try to contain people and force things from the outside. You want (the kids) really going after it on defense. It was kind of like a zone mentality, where some kids think that's an excuse to not really get after it. We did it in a lot of cases because our numbers were down."*

The region has grown into 12 teams from five last year. Webb will venture into foreign gyms with stronger teams. It gives the squad a chance to compete hard and really grow as a team.

"We are playing some teams that we haven't played in the past that will be strong teams," Mitchell said. "We think it's a positive. We think it will help us get prepared for the tournament. It will make us a strong region. We are going to play bigger teams than we have played and we think that will help us."

The season opener is at Middle Tennessee Christian on Nov. 17.