City of Basketball Love

Michael Bullock (@thebullp_n)
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(Ed. Note: This article is part of CoBL's "Prepping for Preps," our series of articles previewing area high school teams for the 2015-16 season. For the complete list of schools previewed so far, click here)
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CARLISLE — As each and every one of Carlisle’s returning basketball players sit back and recall how the 2014-15 season came to an abrupt end, all of them get more and more agitated and wound up about a 56-49 loss to Northeastern.

Particularly since the York County side went on to play in the PIAA Class AAAA tournament, a spot Andre Anderson’s Thundering Herd believed belonged to them.

Yet that sour reminder continues to play a role as Anderson & Co. continue their preparations for what Carlisle’s enthusiastic partisans and everyone involved in the Herd program believes can be a memorable 2015-16 campaign.

Quite simply, that season-ending loss continues to gnaw at the a Herd club that finished 16-7 yet it also serves as motivational fuel for what awaits what might be the deepest club Anderson has had in his five seasons at his alma mater.

“It was a sour taste left in our mouths,” said Anderson, a 1999 graduate who fronts a coaching staff full of Carlisle alums. “That was a tough matchup for us. We’re a little run-and-gun, 6-0-and-under team playing a long, long Northeastern team.

“We thought we could compete with any team in the district last year, we really thought we could. But some of the things that were hurting us throughout the year came back to bite us in the butt. Going against a zone. Knocking down shots at crucial times. Protecting the hoop was a tough one.”

Added guard Jordan Purcell, who scored 17 points in that loss: “That was a heartbreaker – and you never want to experience that. …We have that in the back of our minds. We use that as motivation now, especially since the hype behind us is even bigger and the expectation we’re supposed to uphold is so high from the beginning.”

And there’s good reason to believe Anderson’s latest edition can be extremely successful and live up to the expectations his players have for themselves — not to mention those Carlisle’s avid fan base and student body are sporting.

Much of the preseason juice surrounds the return of the Herd’s three-headed backcourt, an athletic yet flammable trio featuring Purcell (11.2 ppg), 6-1 junior DeShawn “Dey Dey” Millington (15.7 ppg) and 6-1 junior Zion Patterson (4.1 ppg) that ignites Carlisle’s potentially devastating transition attack.

“Sky’s the limit,” said Anderson, who hustled home after Thursday’s workout to be with his wife and newborn daughter. “When you can start with three pieces [such as] Zion, DeShawn and Purcell, they’re all similar, they play well together, they play with confidence and that just gives us as coaches a better overall confidence.”

All three are capable of tormenting defenders with slick crossover moves that enable them to create space and get to the tin repeatedly. Yet all three have been working to fine-tune perimeter jumpers in an effort to create even more danger.

“They really have and it started back in the summer,” said Anderson, the former Herd great who sits fifth on Carlisle’s all-time scoring chart. “It’s not that those guys can’t shoot the ball or don’t have the ability to or the skill to or the form to do so. It’s more or less confidence or having the confidence to do that.

“Earlier, we were doing something live and a kid was sagging off of DeShawn and I blew the whistle and I said, ‘You need to shoot that. You need to prove that you can make that shot.’ I’ve seen him make shot after shot before. I’ve seen Jordan make shot after shot.”

And while veterans Purcell, Millington and Patterson comprise a strong, experienced nucleus, what really has Anderson genuinely upbeat is the number of pieces he and his staff might be able to plug in around those three.

Especially since Gene Evans Gymnasium is filled with athletes and several bigs that may provide the Herd with greater floor balance.

Adding backcourt depth behind Purcell, Millington and Patterson are 5-9 senior Tyler Greene, 5-9 sophomore Gavyn Barnes and 5-9 junior Ben Milligan.

As for the guys up front, look for brawny 6-2 senior Chuckie Nist, 6-6 junior Ethan Houston, 6-4 senior Paul Candland, 6-2 junior Nate Barnes and 6-5 sophomore Ki Barnes to be in the running for valuable minutes.

Plenty of valuable, up-tempo minutes for a Herd club that wants to impose its will on every opponent it encounters — for several reasons.

• Carlisle is much more comfortable at a quicker pace.

• And if the Herd can attack from the start, construct a lead and force others to play at their tempo, they can avoid those zone defenses that have tormented them.

“We have a speed game,” said Millington, a marvelous three-sport athlete who captured the PIAA Class AAA triple jump championship as a freshman. “We’re not supposed to play at their speed, we’re supposed to play at our speed.”

While Anderson’s fast-paced club will open the season against South Western at its own Carlisle Classic — Purcell will celebrate his 18th birthday on the second day of the two-day event — testy non-league dates with Williamsport, Central York, Spring Grove and Allentown Allen will follow for the Herd.

And then there’s the Mid-Penn’s brutish Commonwealth Division, a deep group with probable hammers such as Harrisburg, State College and Central Dauphin East that can cause all sorts of problems. Rivals Chambersburg and Cumberland Valley merely add to the degree of difficulty for a Carlisle bunch that last season finished second.

“What it comes down to is we’ve got to be ready every game,” Purcell said. “We can’t take games off. We can’t take practices off. We have to make the most of it. We’ve got a really tough schedule.”

It’s all part of playing in a Carlisle program that captured four consecutive PIAA Class AAAA champions from 1985-1988 yet hasn’t collared district gold since 1994, just before Anderson and assistant Ryan Gordon entered high school.

Carlisle also appeared in six District 3 finals — the Herd won four times — from 1982 to 1988 under former skipper Dave Lebo. And guess whose name appears on the Evans Gymnasium floor that the Herd practice and play on? Yep, Lebo’s.

So …

“Obviously the community and the fans are going to have high expectations,” Anderson admitted. “The kids have high expectations. We have high expectations as coaches. That’s something we always try to do, set our expectations pretty high to begin with. Like I said, the sky’s the limit with these guys.

“If we can stay healthy,” Anderson added. “If we can stay together as one, I think we can make some noise. I think we can really make some noise. We’ve always set our goals high and that’s the way we’ve done business here. It’s Carlisle to the heart.”