A year ago, the Maine South boys basketball team entered its offseason knowing that Jon Arenas would be one of its key contributors during the 2015-16 season. The rest was relatively uncertain because Arenas was the lone starter slated to return.
This year’s team kept on winning, however. It finished 21-10 and reached the Class 4A Maine South Regional title game, which it lost to Stevenson 60-42 on Friday, March 4. It won the Maine West tournament, took third at the Hinsdale Central Holiday Classic and beat state-ranked Evanston. It did so, in part, because its seniors — specifically, Arenas, Brad Perry, Austin Derrick, Tommy Digan and Joe Gardiner — developed in the offseason.
“I’m real proud of how the guys turn themselves into self-made players,” Maine South coach Tony Lavorato Jr. said.
The Hawks’ offseason program was, by and large, the same as it’s been for years.
One aspect of it is the 10,000 shot club. Seven of the top eight players in Maine South’s rotation were part of the 10,000 shot club, meaning they attempted at least 10,000 shots between the end of the 2014-15 season and the start of the 2015-16 season, Lavorato said. Shots taken while playing another high school sport don’t count toward the total. Arenas and Digan, who made a team-high 35 percent of this 3-point attempts, are both members of the 40,000 shot club for their high school careers. Digan took 20,000 shots during the offseason between his junior and senior seasons.
The Hawks keep track of the number of shots they’re taking in the offseason on a spreadsheet. They get a T-shirt for every level — 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 — they reach by shooting on their own.
“It’s an honor code thing,” Lavorato said. “But it’s also a check-and-balance thing because if you’re missing open 15-foot shots, I don’t care what you told me, you didn’t shoot 10,000 shots.”
The program has proved effective during Lavorato and assistant coach Mike Nee’s time together at Maine South. It’s been a powerful thing, Lavorato explained, because it shows the younger players — both at Maine South, and at the pre-high school levels — what it takes to be as good as Arenas or shoot as well as Digan or develop like Perry did in his all-conference senior season.
“We’ll [acknowledge] that in our meeting. We’ll have guys stand up: ‘Who’s in the 10,000 shot club? Who’s in the 20,000 shot club?’ ” Lavorato said. “Then, the younger guys look up and they say, ‘Man, I want to be a part of that club.’ “
Lavorato added: “Shooting’s a small aspect of it. Part of [the 10,000-shot club] is the dedication to do something, consistently — to practice. All of a sudden, the other aspects of the game come along with it. That’s what we like about it. If someone’s dedicated enough to shoot those 10,000 shots, then they’re going to be dedicated enough to becoming a better player, to becoming a team player, to dedicating themselves to our program.”
Arenas and Perry will both be big losses for Maine South, but Lavorato and Nee are optimistic that the group of players slated to return will develop by putting in the hard work like past Hawks have done.
Nee said he is “looking forward to seeing them grow and step in and fill the tradition that these seniors have been able to [continue].”
The list of Maine South’s likely returners includes sophomores Michael George, Tommy Gardiner and Grant Miller. Junior guard Nick Foldvary and junior forward Milos Ljiljak both just wrapped up their second varsity seasons. They came off the bench against the Patriots.
“I think we’re going to have a pretty nice foundation,” Lavorato said. “I’m excited about the group we have coming back. The offseason’s going to define it even more.”
Eric Van Dril is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press papers.
Twitter: @VanDrilSports
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