The Concord boys’ basketball team will put some familiar, and talented, faces on the floor when it opens the season tonight at Bedford – sharp-shooting senior Matt Giroux, promising sophomore Tyler Bruns, athletic guards, and twin brothers, Tyler and Teddy Blodgett.
The big change for the Crimson Tide will be on the bench, where Dave Chase takes over after coaching the Hopkinton boys’ team for the last 13 years, and winning 193 games in the process.
“I’ve been a lot more excited to start the season than I have been in years past, just because I know what we have coming back and I know what we’re capable of with a great new coach,” said Giroux, a 6-foot guard and the team’s leading scorer last year. “I’m excited to start the season.”
Concord went 3-15 last year, had a 13-60 record over the last four years under John Finnegan and hasn’t had a winning record since 2003-04. That’s a lot of history to turn around, which is why the Tide’s first goal is to simply gain some respect among its Division I opponents. That’s the word the team uses to break the huddle, “and that’s what we’re looking for, some respect,” Chase said.
The Tide started to earn it this fall in a league at Rivier University in Nashua by going 6-2, which included splitting a pair of games against Bedford.
“I thought it was a great thing to play down there, we haven’t done that in the past and I thought it was a good experience for our guys to go against some of the top teams in our league,” Giroux said. “In years past, we played D-II and D-III teams, but I think that was good for us to play more competition at our level.”
Playing in that league was also a good team-building experience for Concord. The Tide got to bond – and play some solid competition – last weekend during a trip to Connecticut that featured two scrimmage wins (Giroux went 13-for-16 from 3 during the two games) and ended with a visit to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.
“The trip was awesome,” Chase said.
And the team building has worked.
“We’re more of a team than we were last year,” Giroux said. “Last year, we were more individuals players, but this year everybody really gets along and we’re playing together, and I have to give all that credit to Coach Chase. He’s done a lot of team-bonding exercises and I feel like we’ll all want to work together to accomplish our goals.”
Giroux may be the top offensive threat for the Tide, but he’s hardly the only one.
“Everybody can score, that’s our strength,” Giroux said.
Chase added, “We’ve probably got four or five guys who can come down 1-on-1, take somebody and go.”
Defensively, Chase has been teaching the Tide the kind of attacking, pressurized, man-to-man defense that helped him find success at Hopkinton. But that’s still a work in progress, as is the rebounding, which looks to be Concord’s weak spot heading into the season.
“If you told me right now we would outrebound our opponents in three quarters of our games, I’d tell you we’d win three quarters of our games,” Chase said, “but I don’t know if we can do that.”
Giroux will start at the point and he’s been working on his distribution during the offseason. The Blodgett brothers, 6-foot-1 junior John Kalisz, a good shooter, and 6-foot junior Jacob Knowles, another good athlete, will get most of the early minutes at the wing spots. Tejun Celestin, a 6-3 junior, will be the big man with help from 6-4 seniors Ryan Warner and Collin Maloney.
Bruns will man the power forward spot, but he’s a versatile player who can play inside, outside or anywhere in between. He showed flashes of potential last year as a freshman on varsity. This year, the Tide needs Bruns to bring it on a consistent basis.
“He is a huge piece for us,” Chase said.
While the first goal is respect, Chase also admitted, “I don’t like to lose, I don’t know how to lose, and I told the kids that’s the approach we have to have and I think they’re buying in. I think we’re going to surprise some people this year, I really do.”
Finding a way to .500 and making the playoffs would probably surprise many across the state, but at least one Tide player wants the bar set higher.
“My goal in anything in life is to get the best possible result, so obviously my goal is a state championship,” Giroux said. “I’m not saying that’s realistic, but that’s my goal.”
(Tim O’Sullivan can be reached at 369-3341 or at tosullivan@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @timosullivan20.)