With a new coach, an experienced team, and fresh aspirations, North’s Varsity Boys Basketball team is heading into the St. Charles West tournament next week with high hopes. The tournament, starting Dec. 3 and lasting through Dec. 7, will mark the begininng of the team’s season. According to the players and Coach Darrell Davis, their goals for the tournament are to win, limit mistakes, learn, and gain respect for the team.

“I want for our team to try their best, and the results will follow,” Davis, the new head boys basketball coach, said. “We need to eliminate mistakes, and if we eliminate mistakes we will have a good tournament.”

The other teams competing in the tournament include Lutheran North, SCW, FZS, FZW, Kirkwood, Ritner, and St. Dominic. North’s first game will be against Lutheran North at 6 p.m. on Monday.

“Our biggest game right now is Lutheran North because that’s our first game,” Davis said. “We are just going to take it one game at a time. They will be tough, but they won’t be too big we can’t handle.”

Junior James Gleeson agrees that Lutheran North will be good competition, but also believes that FHN can win the game.

“We are going to have to have to play hard and hustle and do our best because they are a good team,” Gleeson said.

According to the team, North is confident that they can win the tournament because of their extensive team preparation and the amount of work that the players have put in. In addition, they think that they will be able to perform better than they did last year.

“We have a better chance of winning [than last year] because of our new coaching staff, a lot of returning players, and a lot of team chemistry with each other,” senior Andrew Raguini said. “We’ve put in a bunch of new offenses, defenses, and what to do against defenses; we couldn’t be more prepared.”

However, winning is not the only thing that the team hopes to get out of this tournament. Davis is also looking forward to learning more about his new players; the team is ready to get their first games under their belt. Moreover, there are three conference teams in the tournament that North has a chance to face previous to the actual season.

 “We have a lot of competition on our team,” Davis said, “and we will see how certain people react in front of the crowd. I’ve seen our players in practice but not in a game, so it will be interesting to see who steps up. I will be learning a lot in the next week.”

The players and coaches are all looking forward to seeing hard work paid off.

“If we win, it’ll be a good start to the season,” Raguini said. “If we lose it will be a message that we need to work harder.”

Davis, who previously coached at Fulton HS, is looking forward to an ideally successful tournament and season with a team he has enjoyed working with thus far.

“Here’s what I am going to say: the dictionary’s the only place where success comes before work,” Davis said, “and this team works really hard, and that will lead to success. My goal is to get better every game and be playing the best basketball in  Districts.”