The good news for South Lyon is it’s not the only Lakes Valley Conference boys basketball team dealing with turnover.
Eight of the 10 first- and second-team all-league players graduated after last season, including Graham Braun, the Lions’ 6-foot-7 forward. And with Mott and Kettering now playing in the Oakland Activities Association, this might be the most wide-open the LVC has been since it launched in 2017.
“The Lakes is one of those conferences where everyone is replacing everyone,” coach Grant Essenmacher said after the Lions’ 65-56 loss to Brighton in the opener on Dec. 2. “But, at the end of the day, everybody is in a similar boat, so it’s just a matter of who can get there quicker.”
And by quicker, the second-year coach means which team can get its new varsity kids ready to go by the time league play starts on Dec. 18.
South Lyon (0-1) is on its way. The Lions showed flashes of what they can be, even with only four seniors, one player back — junior Alec Benedix — with real varsity experience and about 90% of last year’s scoring gone.
Take the end of the first quarter and the start of the second. The Lions ripped off an 11-3 run with five different scorers, bodies diving on the floor for loose balls and a defense that looked like it had something to prove.
“I was really happy with the effort,” Essenmacher said. “With the young guys who stepped up, for a couple of them, it was their first varsity game, so it’ll take some time to get them acclimated, but I was happy.”
Benedix led them with 21 points, followed by Aidan Gasidlo with 19 and Chase Cumberland with five.
They just couldn’t hold it together late. A few turnovers and missed shots turned into breakaways and foul shots for Brighton. Some sloppy defense didn’t help either, and three Lions fouled out.
“Defensively, we got away from what we were doing in the first half, and I think that was the difference in the game,” Essenmacher said. “I think it comes back to young teams tend to play good stretches for certain periods of time, so it’s going to be about getting them to play that way for 32 minutes, and that’ll take some time.”
Still, the point stands: South Lyon is right on schedule.
“It’s a lot to ask guys who don’t have a ton of varsity experience to step up and score, but we’ve felt pretty good about them,” Essenmacher said. “We feel like we’ve got pretty good shooters, too. We didn’t give them enough good looks tonight, and we’re still trying to get them acclimated defensively because that’s where things can fall apart, like they did in the second half tonight. But we’ll get there, for sure.”
Even in a loss, the Lions left the court feeling encouraged about what’s ahead.
The framework is there. They’ll win by sharing the ball, defending hard and riding the hot hand when someone heats up. They just need to stay steady while the newer guys gain varsity experience.
The LVC is wide open, and South Lyon has a real shot to be in that mix.
“We just need to give them the confidence to go out there and make plays, and I think they did that tonight, especially offensively,” Essenmacher said. “They’re all good basketball players. It’s a different makeup this year because we’re not as big, and we don’t have one dominant player (like Braun) you can run it through. We’re young, so a lot of our success will come from effort. It’ll be a collective, whereas last year it was a couple of guys dominating.”
Brandon Folsom covers high school sports in metro Detroit for Hometown Life. Follow him on his new X.com account at @folsomwrites.
This article originally appeared on Hometownlife.com: South Lyon boys basketball doesn’t play like it’s missing 9 seniors
Reporting by Brandon Folsom, Hometownlife.com / Hometownlife.com
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