2010-2011 Varsity Boys Basketball Preview: Cobble Hill School of American Studies

Team Profile

League: Brooklyn B West

Coach: Timothy Rice (2006 - Present)
2009-2010 Season: 8-8 (regular season); Lost in PSAL Class B semifinals

With exception to the same shoddy practice facilities, the 2010-2011 Stallions bear little resemblance to the version that advanced to the semifinals of the PSAL Class B Playoffs last year.

Missing from this year's squad are four starters, including All-Everything threat Clarence Crawley, who graduated, and playmaker Andre Richey, a would-be starting point guard who transferred to a prep school in Indiana.

What's left of the team is made up largely of inexperienced returnees and J.V  call-ups. With a little over a week until the season opener at Medgar Evers on Dec. 2, the Stallions are a team still in search of its identity.     

"This year's going to be tough," said head coach Tim Rice. "Because they haven't gelled in practice yet and they're going to need more time."

Under Rice, Cobble Hill has grown accustomed to success, advancing to the semifinals four of the last six years and winning 72 percent of its games since 2007. Rice believes his team can make the playoffs again this season, but he doesn't expect the road to be paved so smoothly as years past.

"The question is, how do you get them to believe in themselves?" Rice said.

The Stallions are led by its co-captain forwards Sean Whyte and Kyrone Doyle. Whyte, a 6-foot-2 senior, is the team's lone returning starter and said that unlike last year, when Crawley and Richey carried the offensive load on their shoulders -- they accounted for nearly 60 percent of the team's scoring -- this year's squad will need a team-first approach to win.

"It can't be a one-man show because it's different this year," said Whyte. "The key is to stick with the game plan and work as a team."

With Rice, the game plan always starts and stops in the same place: with a stingy defense. The Stallions gave up an average of 53 points in wins last year, and Rice stresses a tough-love motto to his team at the start of every year: "If you don't play D, you sit next to me."

On offense, the team will need more than clever rhymes. In addition to losing its departing stars, the Stallions practice on a makeshift basketball court in the basement of the school.  Two columns crudely placed in the middle of the court interrupt any ability to run plays or scrimmage at a real time pace. 

The school gained approval to renovate the courts last spring and the project is moving forward, Rice said, but won't come anytime in the near future.

"It'll be great for school spirit," Rice said. "But there's still a lot of red tape involved" before construction is expected to begin.

In the meantime, the Stallions play their "home" games at Brownsville Community Center, a 25 minute drive from the school.  

"Regardless of our situation, we got to improvise," Rice said, as his team ran plays using one half of the low post area. "You got to adjust with what you got."