Every Edinburgh boys basketball player appreciates his assigned role as the Lancers prepare for their seventh regional appearance.
Don’t be surprised if Travis Jones and Caleb Dewey are taking the gratitude to new levels.
Both Jones, a 6-foot-4 senior forward, and Dewey, a 6-3 junior wing, were starters two winters ago when Edinburgh finished 6-18 while producing 47.1 points a game, its second-lowest average this century.
“Obviously, from a team standpoint, it wasn’t good for us,” Dewey said. “I don’t think anyone wants to be the team to get walked on, but to change that we had to put in the work and change the program.”
Remembering the difficult times makes the current club’s success all the sweeter.
“I think it kind of lit a fire in us,” said Jones, who averages 12.5 points and a team-high 7.7 rebounds for the seventh-ranked Lancers, who play No. 2 North Daviess in Saturday’s 10 a.m. semifinal at the Loogootee Regional.
“All of us are competitive kids. We don’t like losing.”
The 2019-20 basketball season was in its early stages when the team’s two seniors quit, leaving coach Keith Witty with a locker room filled with underclassmen.
Edinburgh’s first eight losses were by an average of 24.3 points, its final 10 by a norm of 17.1 – including four by single-digit margins. Perhaps the brightest of spots was the Lancers’ 53-50 sectional win over Trinity Lutheran.
“As the season went along, we were being competitive deeper into games than we were earlier,” Witty said. “Looking back on it, it advanced our progress. It enabled them to be more experienced varsity players the following year.
“For us, it was just all about the process. The situation we were put in and how it was going to help us down the road.”
It helped plenty.
Last season’s Lancers put together the most impressive turnaround of any team in the state, completely reversing their 6-18 mark to go 18-6.
However, a first-round loss to revenge-minded Trinity Lutheran, 72-63, in a semifinal at the West Washington Sectional dampened the mood and refueled the Lancers’ fire entering this season.
Edinburgh led, 52-43, through three quarters against the Cougars before surrendering 29 points the final eight minutes.
“We let up too soon, and it didn’t turn out the way we wanted,” Dewey said. “We got too relaxed on defense, they went on a run and the momentum was flipped.”
Added Jones: “That was really deflating, honestly. That’s when it set in that I’m not leaving here without a sectional title.”
Jones and his teammates took home pieces of net last weekend after defeating West Washington in the sectional final, 49-38. Prior to that, they won over Trinity Lutheran — the fourth postseason meeting between the teams in five years — and Crothersville.
Dewey, who leads Edinburgh in scoring at 21.8 points a contest and is second in rebounds at 6.7, enters the regional with 1,223 career points. Jones sits at 822.
Junior guard Jarrett Turner scores 10 points a game, followed by senior guard Riley Palmeter (8.4) and senior forward Landen Burton (7.8). The first players off the Lancers’ bench are senior forward Travis Vidal, junior guard Braylon Bryant and freshman guard Connor Ramey.
“We knew this year we had the potential to be better than last year,” Witty said.
And, as it turns out, the Lancers are.
