The LBJ Jaguars boys basketball season officially ended with a district win and a solid playoff run, according to Head Coach Freddie Roland. Roland said the team has shown improvement, but still has room for more growth for next season’s goal of reaching state.

The team finished first in district and advanced to the playoffs where they beat Kerrville Tivy 55-31, but lost to Brackenridge in the next round. The team became the district champion by training hard in practice and staying concentrated, according to Roland.

“They deserved to be ranked there, but rank is just rank, you gotta go play the game,” Roland said.

Although the team’s goal was ultimately heading to state after the playoffs, the team did better than expected with their low number of seniors and a large percentage of young players, according to LBJ junior Jordan Teal.

“This year we didn’t have as many seniors,” Teal said. “I think we did better than expected I wasn’t expecting us to go even to the second round many people doubted us but I think we did good as a team,”

Roland saw improvement on defense from the young team, with their aggressive strategy and quick pace of game increasing their productivity, giving them more experience.

“I have seen them go from slow basketball to fast basketball, so they’ve improved and that was something kinda new to me for seeing that much improvement in such a young bunch,” Roland said.

Along with improvements in strategy and experience, they developed a bond as a team. According to Teal their strong relationships brought them closer together on and off the court, improving coordination and communication.

“We played more as a team and we were closer like a family,” Teal said.

The Jags’ best game of the season is open to interpretation, according to Roland. He does however credits their best performance to the first playoff game against Kerrville Tivy.

“We did a great job on defense, great job on offense and that’s the best i’ve ever seen them play,” Roland Said.

In contrast, LASA sophomore Raj Ramachandran thinks their best game was against Manor because of the packed student section.

“Our game against manor because it was a big rowler game and we won that game,” Ramachandran said.

Teal said that it is very helpful for the team to have a large, supportive crowd at games, but he feels that there was not that much support, especially from students this year.

“I wish we had that more [participation] throughout the season, but we didn’t; for some reason they have a student section for football but not as many LASA kids come to basketball and I just question that,” Teal said.

Teal believes that the student section is not the only thing that needs improvement for next year. He said that team is looking to improve skills like speed and jump shots.

“I think we need to improve our speed getting up and down the floor,” Roland said. “Our shooting is not so bad but we are gonna try to improve in that also.”

In order to improve for next season, the varsity players plan on staying in shape through club basketball this spring and by concentrating and working hard on court like they did previous seasons, according to Teal.

“We just kept on getting back to the lab and just kept on getting better and better and better,” Teal said.

Roland believes that the team’s high number of junior players this year will translate to a strong senior team in the 2019-2020 season.

“We have seven seniors, probably going to be eight that’s gonna be graduating next year and I’ve never had that many,” Roland said.

New seniors bring leadership and experience to the team and provide role models for younger players new to varsity, according to Ramachandran.

“We will have a lot more leadership and more experience as well and that’s really important to winning,” Ramachandran said.

Ramachandran thinks they have a increased chance of achieving their initial goal of reaching state or next season because of the leadership and experience the large amount of seniors accounts for.

“We will definitely have a shot next year, it’s nothing to get down about we just have to get in the lab and keep working and we will have I believe seven seniors,” Ramachandran said.