PARIS- High school basketball season has begun across Arkansas, and for the Paris Eagles boys program, the schedule begins on Monday, November 6th.
RNN Sports interviewed the head boys and girls basketball coaches at Paris last week to provide our readers with a glimpse inside their programs and to preview their upcoming seasons.
Paris head boys coach, Andrew Tencleve, arrived in the spring of 2022 from Cedarville to take over the Eagles’ boys basketball program. It was a busy summer for Tencleve as he balanced working with a handful of players in the summer while others were playing travel ball, or in some cases, injured or sick and missing summer workouts.
But as the fall approached, Tencleve began to put his team together, and by this time last year, the Eagles were off and running under their new coach. The 2022-23 season was a rollercoaster season in some respects, but the Eagles finished the regular season as the number two seed from the conference and eventually saw their season end in the first round of the regional tournament against top seed Bergman.
Last week, I had the opportunity to visit Coach Tencleve over the phone to get his thoughts on the upcoming season so we could share them with our readers. I started by asking him to give me an overview of his team for this season. Coach began by saying, “We only have one returning starter and that is Konnor Edwards. He is a two-year starter at the point position. He is somebody we are going to look to for leadership, and we are probably going to lean on him quite a bit on both ends of the floor. So, we are going to need him to display the poise and moxy that comes with being a senior that has played as many minutes as he has. The only other player we have back from last year is Maddox Watts. He is also a senior, and last year was his first year to play basketball since the seventh grade. He is a very good rebounder and is very good on the ball as a defender. He is going to be our key defensively and we have to keep him on the floor. We hope to get more points out of him this year and to be a good screener for us.” Edwards was an All-Conference selection last season.
So, when you look down the Eagles’ roster and you move passed the two returning seniors, the Eagles youth becomes apparent. Sophomore Kort Tencleve, son of the coach, came on late last year as a freshman playing after the conclusion of the junior high season. Kort Tencleve added good outside shooting efficiency to the Eagles’ offense. I asked Coach Tencleve about Kort, and he replied by saying, “We have eight sophomores and Kort was one that spent time with the high school late last season. We are still in “wait and see mode” with him to make sure he gets cleared (medically) to play. But yeah, he is somebody that we need to score a lot of points for us and take a lot of shots for us. He also needs to be a great screener just due to the fact that people are going to key on him. He will help us handle the basketball, help with our spacing, and is somebody that we feel like will be OK defensively.”
Since our interview with Coach Tencleve, Kort was cleared medically to begin the season. That is certainly good news for him, his family, and for Paris fans.
By all appearances from last season, the Paris backcourt should be in good hands with both Edwards and Tencleve. And in addition to the defense and rebounding that Maddox Watts will add, the Eagles will be looking for two sophomores to fill in the last two spots in the low post. Coach Tencleve added, “Another sophomore that we are really looking at is Cutler Haller. He is a little undersized for his position, but he is tough and physical and gives great effort. He can make open shots which will be key for us. Jayden Carter, another sophomore, started in the back court last season on the junior high team. He is somebody that has a developing shot and is also a good on the ball defender. He will be relied upon to give us minutes in the back court. Sophomore Brady Owens kind of battled a knee injury last season in junior high, is a good athlete that has some length that we really need. We are going to need him to develop his shot as well. This summer, he was a really good rebounder, and we will need that too.”
Coach remarked that the Eagles’ backcourt is a little undersized but handles the basketball well. “I feel very, very confident in our back court. Front court is very inexperienced and undersized, but I think there will be good players in that group; whether they are ready or not to start the season may be another thing. Three of those guys are playing football, so we have been limited in the offseason this fall with what we can do in practice. But we will just take some time (early in the schedule) to see who we are.”
With the change in personnel this season, which is a factor that most high school coaches contend with due to graduation, transfers, injuries, etc., I asked Coach if he thought this year’s team would change his philosophy on how he likes to play offense and defense. Coach said, “Philosophically, no. There are some tweaks that will have to be made due to our lack of size. Defensively, we are going to have to provide help in the post area, and you kind of expose yourself to some things when you do that, but when you are as small as we are, it is not negotiable. Offensively, we played like this a lot in the past; going to have to spread the floor out and make basketball plays. We are going to have to get shots, put the ball in the hole and make sure that our better shooters are taking the most shots. I think we will be able to score if we play together, and it is going to be this way for this group all season.”
Depth is a concern and is also an unknown factor at this point before the season. Again, due to younger players still playing football, it will not be fully apparent who can provide minutes off the bench the event of foul trouble to one or more of the starters. “We can handle a little foul trouble in the back court, but it is the front court where it gets a little tough. We just don’t have enough size there. Maybe one of the low post players can have a little foul trouble, but we can’t afford multiple guys in the front court to get into foul trouble.”
Booneville is the favorite to win the 3A-4 boys conference. When I asked Coach for his thoughts, he shared, “I think it is Booneville (as the favorite) with what they bring back. I think they lost maybe two kids. They have a really, really talented junior class, very athletic. They have a good senior guard. So, they have all of the pieces.”
Challenging Booneville this season may be the Hackett Hornets. Coach spoke of Hackett by saying, “They (Hackett) should be as good or better than they have been the past few years. They have everybody back from last year. They have a good senior guard and a good junior post player. To me, on paper, those (Booneville and Hackett) are the two that should be penciled-in those spots. We are really young, Charleston is really young, Cossatot River has got some talent, so, we are just going to have to wait and see.”
Paris will begin the 2023-24 season on Friday, November 10th when the Eagles host Waldron. Watch for coverage of the Eagles’ season on RNN Sports in both our Logan / Franklin County Edition weekly newspaper, and on our website at residentnewsnetwork.com
