Only One Starter Returning, But Rosecrans Up For The Challenge This Season

ZANESVILLE, OH

Head coach Todd Rock is heading into his 32nd season as the Bishop Rosecrans head man, after a 16-9 season last year, led by the school’s all time leading scorer, Grady Labishak. But after losing maybe the best player in school history and two other key starters, Coach Rock will have to build from the ground up.

“You don’t replace Grady Labishak,, you know. Xander did a great job. Brendan Bernath did a great job. And we’ve been through this before. So when I rebuild, you know we’re going to play younger kids. You know we just look for leadership” said Rock. “The best players play in my program and we’ll get better. I mean, we play hard. And when you play hard, you can cause some good things to happen. But, you know, it’s going to take a little while.”

With 70% of the team’s points production from last year graduated, the team will lean on the only returning starter from last year: junior power forward Tyler Burnett, who will have to provide more than his ten points and five rebounds from a year ago.

“I feel like I just need to step up. Since starting last year, we lost four starters, so I have a pretty big role to fill” said Burnett.

But he won’t be the only one filling in big shoes with the absence of Labishak. Coach Rock believes there is a new, young talented point guard ready to take over the reins that could be just as good as the rest.

“There’s so tough, how Coach Rock runs everything. We’re just basketball friends. So much different. You got to be tough to play” said freshman guard Brady Boothe.

Rock added, “And you know, we’re starting a freshman point guard who’s going to be special. There’s no doubt about that. But it’s growing pains and there’s going to be…have days when he looks at me thinks what have I got myself into. But we did the same thing with Grady. We did the same thing with Whiteman, and we did the same thing with Bills. They’ll be okay and joking. And anybody else, you know, we’ve we traditionally developed great guards and most of our thousand point scorers are guards. And that won’t be any exception. Our guards can play a little bit.”

Even with what seems to be a rebuilding season for the Bishops, Coach Rock still has the same level of expectations for this team.

“To win every game and get as far as you can in the tournament. You know, we realize, I’ve always taught our kids: one team win at all. So we don’t put all our eggs in the tournament basket, but we want to be prepared for the tournament. We want to compete for a league championship every year and go as far as we can in the tournament and really enjoy ourselves. I mean, basketball the first three weeks ain’t fun, but now we’re getting to the games where we play two and three games a week and that’s when we’ll find out, did I do a good job teaching?”