Did you know?

This year's Jaguars boys basketball team returns 58 points per game of offense from last year's 25-4 team. Another big item is the fact that they return 27 rebounds per game of board crashing muscle as well. In 23 years of B-B-E basketball, no team has returned that much offense from the previous year.

They begin the 2010-2011 season at 6pm tomorrow night (Friday) at the Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City high school. Their opponent will be neighboring rival Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg. If you want to see some exciting run-and-gun basketball on display, get to that game. It'll be fun to take in.

While I hardly ever make predictions on high school games, I can't ignore the fact that K-M-S only returns one starter from a 9-16 team. (A 5'10" junior guard) They have only one player listed as taller than 6-foot, a 6'1" senior forward who was a letter winner last year.

Meanwhile, the Jaguars have no players in the 5-foot-something range, two players listed at 6'1", with the rest of the roster being 6'2" or taller!

It'll be a blowout to take in for the season opener. I'll be getting pictures at the game along with a few video clips, after spending some time at the B-B-E wrestling tournament in Belgrade. (That begins at 3:30pm by the way)

The Jaguars' Round Two opponent in the Tip-Off Classic, which I predict will be West Central Area, will by no means be a pushover. They've got the talent to beat the Jaguars, so the Saturday night game will be much more competitive than the K-M-S game.

In sports, high expectations can be your friend or your enemy. Especially in a season where you have a target on your back every time you take the court. Just like the Sauk Centre girls basketball team, the Jaguars boys basketball team will have everybody gunning for them. No one can predict how the season will go, but I do have high hopes for the team. It'll be a very exciting year.

For the basketball teams this winter, I won't be putting up video clips that are more than a minute or so in length. While you can call me paranoid, I don't want opposing teams sitting on my website and learning much about how the Jaguars' offense/defense runs. Especially in the case of the girls team, who will have quite a new look over past years' versions after suffering heavy graduation losses in 2009 and 2010.

Another random but very exciting little nugget...Jaguars boys basketball head coach Dave Montbriand enters his 18th season as head coach with 267 career wins. In eight of his previous 17 years as head coach at B-B-E, he has guided the Jaguars to a sub-section championship game appearance. (1992, 1997, 1998, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2009, 2010) On top of that, he has been on the sideline either as an assistant or head coach during all 22 seasons of B-B-E basketball, two as boys assistant in 1988-89 and 1989-90, and three as girls assistant from 2005-2008.

Stay tuned for more as the winter sports season is about to get underway.

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