By Kory CarpenterRecord Sports EditorIt expects to be a year of learning and growing for Wright City Head Coach Ken Brown.Ty Davis and Bret Noble combined to average 35.8 points per game last season for Wright City while earning All-Eastern Missouri Conference selections, and both players — along with five others — graduated.“We graduated seven seniors and lost basically the entire starting five and our bench,” Head Coach Ken Brown said.The Wildcats started the season last week with three losses in the Kennedy Round Robin Tournament, and the growing pains Brown alluded to came to fruition in three double-digit losses.Senior point guard Trey Saddler is expected to lead the team, and Brown hopes the underclassmen will follow.“I think we’re going to be OK, but it’s going to take us a couple of weeks to get where I want to be expectation-wise,” Brown said.With six upperclassmen on the team, Brown was forced to do away with his philosophy of letting underclassmen develop at lower levels.“I try to put as many sophomores as I can on J.V.,” he said. “But the reality is, if I only put juniors and seniors on varsity, we’d only have six players.”Freshman Hunter Meyers has impressed his coach so far, and is expected to back up Saddler at the point guard position.In the paint, Brown is intrigued by first-year player Robert Benoist.The 6-foot-5, 3oo-pound sophomore played left tackle on the football team and decided to give basketball a try this year. His size alone, according to Brown, will help the Wildcats immediately.Benoist’s size and inexperience perhaps epitomize the 2015-16 Wright City team.“We’re very young, so I think it’s going to take us a long time to develop,” Brown said. “But I think we can compete with anybody athletically because we have some decent athletes.”Returning contributors Tyrel Curtis and Devon Holmes will help in the backcourt, where Brown wants to use their athleticism to play a tough man-to-man defense.“Tyrel was a big contributor off the bench for us last season,” Brown said. “And Devon Holmes is a good sophomore that will start for me.”Offensively, Brown wants to spread the floor and set screens on the ball, which should free up space for guards to drive and find open shooters. He thinks the offense might be behind the defense early on, which is normal for a young team.“As long as we share the ball and have good mechanics we should be OK,” Brown said. “I get concerned, with being a young team, when they see the right guy but can’t get the ball to him.”He hopes his underclassmen will continue to learn all aspects of the game at the varsity level while picking up a few wins along the way.“I just want to continue to get better every game,” Brown said. “I don’t want to be the same team we were the last game. There will be mistakes, but learning from those mistakes and learning to play together will be our main thing.”The Wildcats host Elsberry Friday in an early EMO matchup, and Brown hopes to finish in the middle of the pack or better in the conference.“It could be lower or higher depending on how we play,” Brown said. “And a lot of that has to do with me as a coach. I put that on me before I put that on our players, and just trying to get the best out of everybody.”

Members of the Wright City boys basketball team are pictured, front row from left, Jack Simon, Cameron Cole, Tyrel Curtis, Trey Saddler, Koltin Goldsmith and Hunter Meyers. Back row, from left, Robert Benoist, Kyle Christopher, Dakota Phillips, Devon Holmes, Sean McDonald and Justin Bote.               Kory Carpenter photo.