For Sallisaw basketball, now for something completely different

The 2021-22 Sallisaw Black Diamonds boys basketball season ended with a 1013 record that disappointed the fans and players who thought the team was capable of more.

In the Class 4A playoffs, Sallisaw traveled to play Fort Gibson, where the Black Diamonds lost a 72-62 verdict before defeating Seminole, 69-58, then ended the season with a 52-46 loss to Muldrow in third-round play.

Looking to the 2022-23 season, head coach Chad Gehrke knew it was time to do something completely different. What he’d wanted to do wasn’t getting the job done, and the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

“This year is completely different,” Gehrke proclaims. “We’re doing a completely different offense, how we are guarding and our man defense is completely different. We are putting in a zone defense that is going to be completely different. Everything we are doing is completely different. Last year it was all based around Ty [McHenry], the big guy. We don’t have one man that we’re going to go to [this year]. Instead, we’re spreading it out a little more, all kinds of crazy stuff. It’s pretty exciting.”

Little, orange, different… “It’s still going to be a man, but how we are guarding is going to be different, if that makes any sense. We are not going to have the typical set assignments – oh, you’re a post player and you’re a guard. Anybody can go post, anybody can take it off a dribble, so it’s going to be interchangeable 1 thru 5,” Gehrke says.

Offense

Without McHenry as the go-to shooter and nobody designated to take his spot, that workload has to be distributed among the other players.

“I think it’s going to be even across the board,” Gehrke explains. “I think Parker [Jackson], Sim [Kilpatrick], OB [Jackson Obregon] are going to step up to fill Ty’s shoes collectively, like it’ll be one guy or the other. I think it will be all three together. So far, from what I’ve seen, I think it’s going to work out well.”

Starters

Sallisaw returns three starters, and all are players who have seen a lot of minutes on the court, like Kilpatrick, Obregon, Parker Jackson, Cooper Jackson and Braxton Lamb.

The starters’ average points per game last season were 4.9 for Parker Jackson, 11.6 for Obregon, 8.4 for Kilpatrick, 3.9 for Lamb and 2.2 for Cooper Jackson.

Freshmen

There are eight freshmen entering the program this season, and they’re are going to need another year of experience before they’re going to get on the court

Sophomores

There are six sophomores returning this year, including Cooper Jackson, Brodie Cameron, Cooper Carter, Cooper Cox, Kam Dill and Coleman Wasson. Jackson and Cameron will see significant time in games this season, and the other sophomores will be in the rotation as well.

Juniors

Lamb and Max Stump are the two juniors. Both are expected to see a lot of time on the court, with big roles this year.

Seniors

The Black Diamonds have four seniors on the squad this season: Kilpatrick, Obregon, Parker Jackson and Garrett Morgan, with Kilpatrick, Obregon and Jackson filling the role of team leaders this year for Sallisaw.

Morale

The Black Diamonds are going all in this year, making wholesale changes to the way they’re playing, with changes to their offensive schemes and defensive philosophy. That means it should be an interesting season, because it would appear all of these changes look like they are helping with morale, like people are actually enjoying training.

That’s usually only true in a few situations where people are seeing positive results, like more success on the court. It seems like this is the case, but the Sallisaw faithful would rather see it than speculate, but something is evidently making Gehrke happy.

Surely Gehrke knows why he’s happy, but he’s playing it pretty close to the vest.

The Black Diamonds basketball season kicks off Nov. 29 at Westville with a 7:30 p.m. tipoff.

Conditioning

When Gehrke first saw the Sallisaw basketball-turned-football players at the end of football season, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His players were in the worst shape he’d ever seen for players coming off of football season.

“I got them last Monday, and they were very out of shape. So we have been doing a lot of getting after it,” Gehrke says in disbelief. “We’ve got a scrimmage and we had one yesterday, so I just try to kill them and then give them the weekend to rest so we will be ready to go.

“It’s pretty incredible. Our first practice, we did a shooting drill which took five minutes. They didn’t get the goal, so we did down and backs. Then we did dummy offense, where you just run through plays and stuff. After that, they were pretty exhausted. It was incredible. There is a difference between football shape and basketball shape any year, but this year seems more extreme.

“We had a scrimmage in Westville and a scrimmage at Tahlequah Sequoyah. The Westville scrimmage went pretty well, and there were some good things and some bad things [vs. Sequoyah], partially because we were out of shape and we are still trying to get used to all this new stuff. But I think it was good for us, because we just spent about an hour watching a film and going over it, so hopefully that helps us going into [our next] scrimmage,” Gehrke says.

“Our first real game is November 29th at Westville. I don’t think people are expecting much out of us this year, and I think we will surprise people. I’m having a blast. I think our morale is pretty high. Last year, our first scrimmage didn’t go so well. From last year to this year, we are already improving. I think the program is like night and day from when I got here to now.

“ This offseason, I actually swallowed my pride. I’ve been the coach saying, ‘Hey, I’m going to do this,’ and then, ‘Hey, look at me.’ But I swallowed my pride and did some research, and now I’m doing all kinds of different stuff. Swallowing your pride is a good thing,” Gehrke decides.