November’s Jamboree kicked off the 2014- 2015-basketball season for the Oak Park Northmen. Many wondered how they would fare this season after losing their entire starting lineup from a year ago.

The big concern would be the guard play, Justin Walker and Reggie Allen could shoot the ball well and were able to penetrate and score inside. Rashid Davenport was a lockdown defender for the Northmen and they could count on him to shut down the opposing teams best player on any given night.

Now the starting point guard is Carlton Burns, who has plenty of talent, but is known to be reckless with the ball. Logan Cassity, who is known for being a three-point specialist, can he also be that lockdown defender for Oak Park.

The Northmen started out by playing the Winnetonka Griffins and talking to some of the players they thought Winnetonka wouldn’t be much of a challenge since senior Julius Sabastiano will be out for the year after suffering a knee injury while playing football for the Griffins this season. They should probably give the Griffins more credit however considering they lost the game 17- 10. Oak Park struggled to score points, which could just be a result of some pre-game jitters and a bit of rust since it’s the first game of the year.

Oak Park’s second was against perhaps the biggest rival the Staley Falcons. A fan favorite contest as both schools pride themselves on being better then the other. This was a game Oak Park will likely want to forget as they were blown out by the Falcons, losing 26- 8. They looked sloppy on offense turning the ball over and not getting up good shots. The only positive you can take away from this game was that last year Oak Park lost to Staley in the Jamboree but came back to sweep them in the regular season.

Through two games Oak Park looked like they might be in store for a rough season, but then they showed us something against North Kansas City. They started the game on a 14-0 run by hitting three pointers and finishing contested lay-ups over the Hornet defenders. They went on cruise control after that and ended up winning by a score of 21- 15.

So what’s to make of this season for Oak Park? They went 1-2 in the Jamboree this year but don’t put too much thought into it, it’s very early in the season.

As of the jamboree, they’ve only had six real practices if you don’t count tryouts as a practice. They also need to find their identity as a team, which takes time. The bottom line is I wouldn’t be too worried about your Oak Park Northmen; this team has plenty of talent and depth and they have plenty of time to figure it out before the regular season starts.