Last season, Oakton fans watched as both the boys, and girls, basketball teams dominated the court and marched on to the playoffs. Under the guidance of Coach Dave Brooks, the boys’ team finished 13-10 last year, and made it to the second round of regionals. The girl’s team, with the help of Coach Fred Priester, finished the year 24-2, and went all the way to the state semifinals. Both teams look to repeat their past success, with just one small change. This year, they’re looking to win state.
“Last year’s success makes you want to come out every day, whether it be practice or a game” said Zora Stephenson, a senior guard and captain for the girls’ varsity team. “We want the title so bad this year, and that is our motivation”. Stephenson knows what it feels like to go so far, yet fall short, but that doesn’t affect her drive for this season.
“We take it one game at a time, but in the end we wouldn’t consider it to be a successful season if we didn’t get back to states,” Stephenson said. If all that pressure of trying to outdo last year weren’t enough, Stephenson also has to deal with the pressure of being a captain for the team.
“There is a little bit of pressure because the coaches expect so much more from you than anyone else, and it is not okay for me to be having a bad day,” Stephenson said.
This pressure of being a captain doesn’t have as much of an effect on Adi Hajrovic, a senior captain for the boys’ team.
“There isn’t much added pressure at all. Just to be a strong role model for the team is all,” Hajrovic said. Along with Hajrovic, Coach Priester feels that pressure doesn’t control his ability either.
“We think that our winning tradition is a privilege and not a burden. Whatever pressure we feel is self-imposed, but because we work so well as a team, that pressure is sort of defused” Priester said. “I personally don’t feel a lot of pressure to win, I just feel pressure to help the team win, because if the team wins, it is the girls that won, but if the team loses, it is really me that lost.” Coach Brooks understands the pressure that a player has, but also understands the pressure he deals with as a coach.
“A player needs to have a short term memory. They can’t allow one play to affect their game plan, whether it is a good play, or a bad one” Brooks said. “A coach needs to always have the answer to the question why. ‘Why did we lose’, ‘why did we win,’ a coach needs to know these answers so that his team can know these answers.” In the end though, the amount of pressure on a player or a coach can all be affected by the importance of a game.
When comparing an early season game, to a playoff game, the impact of pressure changes. Your mentality can go from being ‘it’s just a game’ to ‘if we lose, we’re done,’ and that is one thing that can alter a team’s season, no matter how good they are.
“A playoff game is a much bigger deal,” Hajrovic said, and his reasoning came mostly from who the team was playing. In the early season, most of the games are against non-district opponents, but when the playoffs come around, the team is going against their Concorde district opponents, and to Hajrovic, “a playoff game against a district opponent is much more important.”
Playoff games also mean a lot more to Stephenson.
“The risk is a lot different. Mistakes mean a lot more, but good plays mean a lot more too. Everything is just bumped up a notch from what is used to be,” Stephenson said.
All this pressure, and the difference in importance of games, alters a team’s expectations for a season, but not necessarily in a bad way.
“Our expectations are to win, but it’s going to be a major challenge. We have a very stacked division, and it will be a very tough year,” Brooks said. That tough division didn’t slow the team down too much last year, but a big playoff loss can change a team’s goals.
Coach Priester’s goals are for the most part similar to Brooks’, with just one minor difference.
“Our goal is to try to play to our potential every game, and if we do that, we have regional and state potential this year,” Priester said.
The hype behind the two teams this year is strong, and that may be what motivates these teams to victory. With such high potential this year, a repeat of last year’s success, if not more, seems imminent, but until the regular season comes to an end and the playoffs begin, Oakton fans can do just one thing, sit back, relax and enjoy what should be a great season of basketball.
by Conner Dick
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