The South Side boys’ basketball team has been surging in recent weeks, as the group’s impressive play as of late is reflected in its impressive 8-1 mark in Conference A-3.
The Cyclones’ record and level of play is even more laudable when accounting for the COVID complications affecting all teams alike and the lack of experience the unit had entering the season.
“We’ve been a work in progress,” head coach Jerry D’Angelo stated. “We’re very young. We have three sophomores and six juniors so we’re definitely on the younger side. Our sophomores were thrown into a fire. They played three weeks of a JV season last year and now are giving us major minutes.”
For the Cyclones, their multifaceted and adaptable offensive attack has been one of the central catalysts for their strong start. Nobody on the roster puts up overinflated or saturated statistics, as that is simply a byproduct of the deep and potent rotation. Seniors Luke Schwartzberg and Chris Goldstein have been steady presences as the starting backcourt. Sophomores Ryan Kennedy, Patrick Mullin, and Matthew Arnott have been more productive than their respective grade levels would suggest, as the trio is earning significant minutes in the rotation.
D’Angelo said he’s excited about how deep the roster has become. “What I’ve liked out of the past three or four weeks is that kids have been interchangeable,” he said. “We play a lot of kids and they’ve been able to play different positions and spots. It took a little bit of time for us to get used to that. We use the term called strength in numbers, as we try to use our numbers to our advantage and try to be fresher than who we are playing against.”