With only one run returning starter back from last year’s team, one might think that this could be a rebuilding year for the Altus High Bulldogs basketball team.

But Coach Rick Bull is not treating it like a rebuilding year.

The only returning starter is Derrick Bull, who averaged 17.5 points per game last season and is a pre season Class 5A all-state selection. But Rick Bull is quick to tell you that there will be others that will help

“I think people will be surprised,” Bull said. “We have some other kids that will pick up the slack. A lot of kids are going to get a lot of opportunities because Derrick is going to draw so much attention. We’re not nearly as deep as I feel like we’ve been since I’ve had the head job. But we are a little bit bigger and a little bit stronger. We can put some combinations at there that are really athletic. We just don’t have the numbers.”

Here is a break down of the ball club

Guards

Bull returns at shooting guard. and Kamden Phillips (5-7, Sr.) will be the point guard.

D’Angelo Byrd (5-6, Sr.) is the backup at point guard. Erick Sanders (6-2, Sr.) who moved in from Florida last year and gave the Bulldogs some good minutes off the bench is the other starting guard in Bull’s three guard lineup.

Nolan Cox (6-0, Jr.) will probably be the first guard off the bench. Help at the guard position could also come from Thomas Malena (5-10, Jr.), Mason Maahs (5-10, Soph.), Julian Russell (5-11, Jr.).

Forwards/Posts

Caleb Martin, (6-4, Sr.) would have probably started Tuesday at Elk City. However, He fractured a bone in his foot three weeks and could miss the first two weeks of the season.

Mylan Ward (6-3, Jr.) should give the position some athleticism. He and Martin will be the starters.

Tanner Ahrens (6-4, Jr.) Darius Jackson (6-2, Jr.) Davian Hill (6-3, Jr.) should help.

Defense

“We’re still going to play a lot of man to man,” Bull said. “We may not do quite as much full court pressure as we have done in the past. That’s dictated by our lack of depth. We may even play a little more zone than we have in the past. I don’t like to do it (play zone) but when you play fewer people it’s less tiring. But I never one to sit in one defense the entire game.”

Bull said he could go to a 1-3-1 defense at times and a 1-3-1 trapping defense.

“It (1-3-1 trap) paid big dividends for us last year,” Bull said. “I don’t know how many times when that we were barely ahead or the game was close and we went to the trap in the fourth quarter and it turned a lot of games around.”

The Bulldogs have fared well in their preseason scrimmage. They were beaten by Del City which is a 6A school. They beat Piedmont and Choctaw and the lost to Edmond North.

“We faced three 6A teams and we played Amarillo Tascosa pretty much even in a scrimmage we had here,” Bull said. “So I’m feeling pretty good about it. You hear a lot of coaches say this all the time and it’s a cliché and run into the ground. But if we can stay away from injuries and grade problems, I feel really good about it.”

Although there is not much experience returning Bull said some of the players got some valuable playing time in summer camps.

“They all got a full summer of playing in,” Bull said. “They went to Anadarko team camp, OU team camp, so they have gone against varsity type people.”

Schedule

The Bulldogs will host the Shortgrass Tournament and will travel to the Tulsa Bishop Kelly tournament in December. The Bulldogs for the first year will play in the Western Conference which is comprised of mostly 4A schools. It will include Elk City, Woodward, Elgin, Cache, Clinton and Anadarko.

“I think it will be good,” Bull said. “All of them are good 4A schools and will bring good crowds.”

Absent from the schedule is Lawton High and Lawton Eisenhower.

There is optimism

”I think when it’s all said and done, we will have a pretty good ball club,” Bull said. “It’s going to take a while to gel there but we have the ingredients. The one thing that we have in favor is that we’ve had the majority of the kids in here working in here since in August. Last year we had three starters from football. But you don’t want to be playing your best basketball starting the season.”

Altus will travel to Elk City for the season opener on Tuesday.