The opening weeks of the Patagonia High boys basketball season were a little like being strapped onto the hood of a 2023 Chevy Corvette: Zero to Sixty in 2.9 seconds.
With six games in seven days, spread out from Nogales to Bagdad to Tucson, the Lobos were in for some rapid-fire early season lessons.
“That’s the beauty of playing so many games right away,” coach Nate Porter said. “We’re going to figure a lot out these first few weeks.”
The instant immersion began well enough, with back-to-back victories over Lourdes Catholic (71-36) and Bagdad (43-32). But the competition got tougher at the Boyd Baker Tournament at Amphitheater High School in Tucson, and the Lobos were without as many as four of their top players due to various other commitments. They lost four in a row to Bisbee (65-15), Hayden (57-23), Joseph City (57-33) and Duncan (53-50).
“You don’t want to go 0 for 4, but there were definitely some positives out of it,” Porter said. “The last two games were our best two games. We lost to Duncan on a three-point shot at the buzzer.”
Porter said the team responded well to the adversity of being short-handed. In particular, he cited seniors Arturo Magallanes and Leo Nunez.
“We had a couple guys really step up and show that they can be leaders,” he said.
Patagonia had its full contingent of players in the two season-opening wins over Lourdes and Bagdad. They trailed 16-11 at the half against Bagdad – starting sluggishly after a five-and-a-half-hour bus ride before turning the game around. “We played a great second half, really started figuring things out,” Porter said.
The Lobos were 7-10 a year ago and graduated three of their top six scorers: Christian Ibarra, Isaias Gonzalez and Alec Escoboza. Their most experienced returning players are Nunez and juniors Diego Carranza and D.J. Castro. Carranza averaged a team-leading 8.5 points per game as a sophomore, Castro averaged 6.2, and Nunez averaged 4.7 points and 5.3 rebounds.
“The core of our team is back,” Porter said. “Everybody but three or four kids have played in our system before, so that gives us a real advantage as the coaches and I start putting stuff in. They’ve already done it before, it’s not new information. That’s different from the last couple of years.”
Porter’s main early season concern is the lack of a proven point guard.
“The weakness of our team is ball handling, and that’s something we’re going to have to overcome as the season goes on,” he said. “We’re going to have to get better at handling pressure.”
The Lobos will continue to have a busy schedule throughout early December before region play opens on December 18.
“The first half of the season you figure out what your team is, your strengths and your weaknesses, individually and collectively,” Porter said.
“We’re about what I thought we would be. We have a lot of talented players who are pretty good. We need them to step up from being pretty good to being great.”