By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
After finishing the 2019-2020 season without a single win, the Ell-Saline Cardinals boys basketball team is looking to shift the culture in 2020-2021.
A big part of that shift will be in the hands of newly hired head Coach Marty Wendel, who coached at Chapman prior to Ell-Saline.
When the new and improved Cardinals team takes the floor against Sacred Heart on Friday, their lineup will look something like this.
PG: Tagen Bradley (Jr, 5-7)
G: Hunter Steinbruck (Sr, 5-7)
G: Trevor Peterson (Sr, 5-9)
F: Carter Underwood (Sr, 6-0)
C: Kade Wilson (So, 6-0)
The Cardinals will also be looking for good bench production from a pair of freshmen in Joe Hiechel and Marshall Johnson, and a senior in Garrit Caswell.
We had a chance to ask Coach Wendel a few questions before the team’s first game on Friday.
Q: What are some of the things you’re looking to bring to the culture of Ell-Saline basketball after last year’s winless season?
A: We want to change the culture into something we can be proud of. Getting the kids to understand that practice and accountability are important and that we need to be tough. We need them to hold each other accountable and understand that anyone can be on the floor, it’s hard to say that anyone is super key when nobody helped us to win a game last year.
How do you feel like that culture change is coming along in the first few weeks of your time at Ell-Saline.
It’s really been amazing to see the change in these kids attitudes and their expectations for themselves even just in these first few weeks.
Heading into this season what would you say is the teams biggest strength?
Our biggest strength is definitely defensively, we’ve picked up on and progressed so much defensively already. That’s definitely what we’re going to have to hang our hat on.
And your biggest weakness?
There are going to be times with a brand new system where we struggle with our spacing and our assignments on offense. It’ll be a learning process and that could definitely be our biggest weakness or our biggest key to success.
Who are one or two players that Cardinals fans should really keep an eye on this season?
I’m really excited to see our three freshmen, they have a ton of potential and after this year people around here are going to know about that class. When you add that to good veteran players like Cade, Mason and our seniors, it’s a great thing we have here this season.
What is your expectation for this team and what expectation have they put on themselves after last year?
There has never really been any expectation for these kids during their time here at Ell-Saline. Changing that is big for us and from what I’ve heard from them they’re gaining confidence and I think they really believe that we should find ourselves in every game this year.
The Cardinals season will tip off immediately following the girls game at Sacred Heart High School on Friday night.