SE Illinois News

The Sparta High School boys' basketball team is in a growth phase.

With Head Coach Jonathan Norton coming in and implementing a new program, the Bulldogs are looking to get acclimated to the new way of doing things while simultaneously preparing a talented crop of young players for the future.

Norton isn't surprised with the way things have gone so far, figuring it is all part of the development process.

"I think we're about at the point I'd thought we'd be," he said. "We're a very young and inexperienced team, and I knew that coming in. I got kind of a late start with these guys with it being my first year coaching. We're off to a slow start, but at the same time, that's what I expected."

On top of the transition, the Bulldogs are dealing with the hurdle of inexperience. Despite a solid group of underclassmen, they lack court time at the top level, which has been a challenge. But Norton sees real improvement due to the great work ethic of the players. 

"We've got a pretty good freshman and sophomore class," he said. "We're playing, right now, the older kids, but they're just very inexperienced at the varsity level. None of them have ever started at the varsity level, and there really hasn't been any playing time in the past for them. Even though we have some juniors and seniors in the program, they just don't have experience at this level either. Overall, it's gone pretty well. I just know it's a process and it's going to take some time for everything to flow and get into a groove and sync together. But overall, where we're at right now, I'm pretty happy with how things are going. The kids are working and buying into the system."

Norton has leaned on post player Nasuer Hobbs and guard Brian Lowry this year, as they are two of the team's top scorers and main veteran players. He has relied on their speed and athletic ability to help set the tone for the team.

"Our strength is, we have some speed and we have some kids who can run the floor -- and we definitely can guard," Norton said. "The only problem is, we're not getting enough points and scoring enough to be able to get into our defense at full court like I'd like us to, so that's kind of hampering us. But I think our athletic ability and our speed is definitely our strength."

Despite the inexperience, Norton has a talented crop of underclassmen he hopes to improve for the coming seasons. As such, he has placed a heavy focus on fundamentals during practice to set expectations for the program and get everyone on the same page. 

"We're doing a lot of fundamentals and a lot of drills that you probably do a lot more over the summer than actually during the season, but that's just the approach that I need to take right now with our program," he said.

That effort seems to be paying off with improvement, which is the primary goal of this year's campaign, according to Norton. He's only looking for his guys to get better and better with each game -- and the team has responded to his efforts.

"My goal coming in was just to make sure that we're improving as the season goes on," he said. "And my goal is to be a competitive basketball team by the end of the year. And I still think that we're on track to do that. I'm not going to judge us this year based on wins and losses, but I want to be competitive. And we play in a very, very difficult conference, and we have a tough non-conference schedule. So things aren't going to get easier for us, I'm just looking for us to improve and compete by the time the season's over."