Forget a rebuilding season, Livonia Franklin boys basketball is going through a rebranding.
The Patriots want to become less reliant on stars, more focused on their depth, play tougher defense and create a new identity based on effort and balance.
“Our big goal this offseason was to establish a culture and standard that we think has gotten away from us for a couple of years,” ninth-year coach TJ Hurley said before a Summer League game on June 26.
Specifically, it’s been about two seasons.
They won the Kensington Lakes Activities Association-East in 2023, relying on a senior class that emphasized selfless, team-oriented play to upset their division and earn a berth in the league championship. It didn’t matter who was on the floor, from seniors Eric Hobson Jr. (Indiana Tech), Kevin Davis (Lansing Community College baseball) and Adam Alokab to the up-and-coming juniors and sophomores, Hurley knew he was getting everyone’s best effort. And if not, someone else wanted to go in and make up for whatever was lacking on the floor.
Graduation hurt them the following season, and they slowly drifted away from an identity that made them a 17-win team to one that relied a little too much on their star players. Their 2024 campaign saw them live and die with guards Mitch Cronyn (Siena Heights) and Robbie Wynn (Albion), a big reason why they went 11-13. And when those two graduated, a similar burden was heaped on Kam Webster (Madonna) last winter.
Those days are over. This summer, they’ve relied on a strong mix of five seniors, five juniors and one sophomore to bring that team-based approach back to Franklin, something that made the team exciting to watch two years ago.
“We’re seeing our team playing together and playing extremely hard because we finally have the bodies to do it,” Hurley said. “We have several guys who have taken steps forward this summer who are really helping us. You could call it balance, but we really enjoy the guys we’re working with right now. They’re putting in a big-time effort.”
Having a productive summer so far have been returning seniors Dominic Goines, Jeff Little, Owen Poisson and Georgiou Stylianou, junior Santi and sophomore Eric McCoy Jr., who spent time on both varsity and JV last season, and incoming juniors Frankie Accardo, Juronnn Gardner Jr. and Jonah Greis.
“What you’ll see this season is we’ve changed our style to use a numbers approach,” Hurley added. “We’re trying to get a little more athletic, play a little more up and down, use more bodies and try to play 8, 10 guys. We have good, deep junior and senior classes that we think will give us a much more team-oriented style. Maybe we’ll lack a Kam Webster or Owen Pittenger, but we will have 8-10 guys who can play play.”
Goines and McCoy have emerged as key leaders.
At almost 6-foot-5, Goines should be their leading scorer, while he’s also worked on his defense. Hurley compares his playing style to Cronyn, but he has a stronger touch around the net because of his bigger size.
“When he starts to get going, he can really get going,” Hurley said. “He doesn’t have quite the knack for scoring like Mitch had, but he can score at a clip, and when he gets to the rim, his hands are so good on the finish that playing off two feet are really tough to stop. And he’s always working on his game. Dom’s in the gym every day.”
Hurley admitted McCoy has the potential to be one of the best players he’s ever coached at Franklin.
While only a sophomore, the point guard plays with a high IQ, capable of handling ball pressure and making smart decisions on offense, especially late in games. Last year, he showed flashes of greatness while spelling Webster.
“What you see with him is a knack and feel for the game that you don’t really see out of high school kids,” Hurley said. “But you could see it in when he was a 14-year-old who weighed 110 pounds. The way he used his body, the way he was able to predict things before they were about to happen, that was huge. They were things you can’t teach or replicate in practice. I don’t really think he knows he’s doing it at times.”
Getting more playing time will make McCoy even better.
“As he’s getting older, and growing, his skills are coming more apparent, and you can really trust him to do things,” Hurley added. “I think, by the end of it, he’ll be one of the best players that I’ve gotten to be around, especially in those last three minutes of a close game where he controls everything. He’s just a sophomore right now, but I think he can handle quite a bit of responsibility for us.”
Having a reliable supporting cast around those two should make Franklin a contender in the East again, something that seems quite plausible with the buy-in the Patriots have had all offseason.
That’s what made them special in 2023. Can they have a similar season this winter?
“It was really nice (in 2023) because if a guy wasn’t playing well, or a matchup wasn’t there, we could bring in another guy and that could help us,” Hurley said. “We think we have something going like that now, where we have another contingency of 6-7 guys who are really stepping up. We just have to keep playing hard because we’ve found that effort fixes a lot of mistakes. You don’t have to be perfect, just keep playing hard. I think we’ve done a decent job of establishing that kind of an indentity and culture so far this summer.”
This article originally appeared on Hometownlife.com: Rebuild or rebrand? Livonia Franklin boys basketball focusing on changing culture
Reporting by Brandon Folsom, Hometownlife.com / Hometownlife.com
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
