Braves Roster Turnover | Video

Lee Timmerman | 11/29/2012

The Mandan Boys basketball team finished first in the WDA regular season standings last year on its way to a third place finish at state. The Braves were hit hard by graduation and only return a handful of players from last year`s squad.

Gone are four of the Braves five starters including Mr. Basketball Finalist Devin Coyle. The only returning starter is All-WDA guard Erron Collins. But there is group, mostly seniors, that will move into the vacant starting positions.

"Nathan Schmidt, Keetan Watner, Jake Hanson. They`ve got gone to every single workout. You can tell the kids want to be there this year. They know what they have to do. We know we`re not ready yet but they were coming everyday in the summer trying to get better," said senior Erron Collins.

"We`ve got to come to work at practice everyday. Because we`ve got a lot of work to catch up to last years team. They were a lot bigger than us. We`ve got to come ready to work, listen, do the fundamental things," said senior Nathan Schmidt.

With the new additions, Coach Jason Horner knows it`s going to take a few games for his team to learn how to gel-together on the court.

"We know its going to start off a little slow. We only have one player that started and played major minutes in Erron Collins. We`re only returning 13 points a game and he`s 12 of those so we know things might be a little slow to start but we need to have a good attitude. Keep working hard, trying to improve, get better so we`re playing our best in March. Take our chances in the WDA tournament and see what happens."

The Braves will start their season on the road December 14 in Jamestown.

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