By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
As Justin Leith gets set to begin his second season as head coach of the Stuart Country Day School basketball team he can already see improvement in the little things that make a successful program.
“Things are definitely much smoother,” said Leith, who is also the school’s athletic director. “I am not a new coach and expectations have been set. We have some of the older ret kids that are returning and they are getting the new kids to fall in line. So the expectations are there. They have a great work ethic with the attention to detail that I ask for.”
Stuart finished 11-16 in Leith’s first year as head coach. The Tartans beefed up their schedule and played 27 games after having played just 16 the season before. This year the schedule includes three in-season tournaments, including one Stuart will host later this month.
“I think the foundation is set and we’ll grow as the season goes on,” said Leith, whose team was scheduled to open the season on Thursday against Barrack Academy. “Our tournament is a 10-team tournament on the 18th, 19th and 21st. We have a team from Connecticut and some other prep schools as well as Princeton Day and Montgomery as local teams. So it will be nice. It’s a pretty big event and we’ll have games in each gym. It will be a nice way to start the season.
“We’re kicking it off with George School tournament this weekend and later on we’re playing in the Wardlaw-Hartridge tournament. So it is a fun way to see another element of competition and see some teams we may not see in the regular season.”
Leith hopes the team continues to take the same sort of steps forward this year as it did a year ago. Some new players have been added to the mix and the returning players have another year of experience.
“We progressed last year,” Leith said. “The girls got better every game and we set the bar for establishing a real work ethic and building on that for years to come. It’s good to have a foundation for a spring board for anything else we want to accomplish.
“I remember that with my first year coaching boys at my old school it was tough and then by the next year we didn’t have to tell anyone any what we expected of them.”
