Bob Nuse

By: centraljersey.com
Kevin Wright isn’t measuring the success of his Bordentown High boys basketball team this season in terms of wins and losses.
What Wright prefers to look at this season is the progress the team has made over the first month of the season.
"We’re making big strides both offensively and defensively," the first-year head coach of the Scotties said. "We’re a pretty inexperienced team. We start one senior, one junior and three sophomores most games and we only have one senior on the team. He is leading us in scoring and leading us on the court. We also have a lot of young kids that are getting varsity minutes and I only see us getting better."
Kartavian Youngblood is the Scotties’ lone senior and he’s been the top offensive player this season. The rest of the team is young and the improvement the team has made can be measured in the progress they have made in second meetings against teams.
"The first time we played Florence we lost to them by 30," Wright said. "Then we played them on Saturday and we lost by seven. I thought we were in the game the whole way. We were down 17-3 early and the kids could have packed it in. But we went on a 19-5 run in the third quarter and got back in the game. I think that says a lot about these kids and how hard they have worked."
The loss to Florence dropped the Scotties to 2-11 on the season. But Wright has seen no quit in his young players.
"These kids could have packed it in after some of these losses but they are still working hard and I think they are seeing the improvement despite our record," Wright said. "Some of the young players have really been coming along. Brandon Hudik is a sophomore who has been starting since the fourth or fifth game of the season and he is an awesome defender.
"Nick Bartolomei is another sophomore who has been starting some games and continues to improve. Casey Degnon is a junior who wasn’t getting much time in the beginning of the year but he got a shot against Delran and scored 26 points."
Wright has seen progress from his whole team, with juniors Mike Ansong and Joe Robinson making key contributions along with sophomore Pat Donahue.
"We have a young team and we are definitely making improvement," Wright said. "I think it says a lot about their character that they have continued to play as hard as they have. I think now that we are starting to see some of these teams a second time we’ll be able to see what kind of progress we have made. We’d like to try to get some wins along the way."