The Johnston boys basketball team put together a solid season last year, finishing 7-11 in Division III-West.
But it’s a new year and players have come and gone.
The Panthers graduated six seniors from last year’s team, including three team captains and the team’s top two players in Ryan McKeon and Zachary Coro.
McKeon was a First team All-Division selection a season ago, while Coro was a Second-Team selection.
Johnston has eight seniors on its roster entering this season, but not all of them have played a ton at the varsity level. That means that the Panthers will rely on some of their younger players.
“We’re in a transition,” head coach Steve DeMeo said. “We were definitely a senior-based team last year.”
DeMeo’s strongest group of players will be his sophomores, as Johnston will start at least two of them in guards Ryan Yankee and Nassir Vasquez. DeMeo will also look to other sophomores, Michael Sabitoni and Peter Smith to contribute off of the bench.
“We’re looking for our sophomores to really step up this year,” DeMeo said.
The starting five to start the season will more than likely be guards Yankee, Vasquez and senior captain Chris Vizzacco, to go along with another senior captain in Louie Sasa at forward and junior Edward Gallucci at center.
Juniors Jacob Coro and Stephen Cotoia and senior Larry Dureault will also see time.
Not only will this group of players look to fill the losses of McKeon and Coro on the scoreboard, but more importantly, the team will attempt to replace their leadership qualities.
“That’s the key,” DeMeo said. “It’s not so much replacing their scoring ability, but it’s replacing their leadership.”
However, Johnston will look to get a bulk of its points from Yankee. Even though he’s only a sophomore, he was an instrumental piece to the team a season ago.
“We expect a lot from him this year,” DeMeo said. “He was our second-best scorer last year and he’s a tremendous shooter.”
The Panthers will look to utilize the talent of their guards, as they lack size in the frontcourt this year.
They’ll use Gallucci as a center, but he’s only 6-foot-3. Not only is their tallest player only 6-foot-3, but their next tallest player is only 5-foot-11.
To negate its size issues, Johnston will look to get out in transition and get some fast-break points.
“We’re definitely going to try to push the ball up the floor,” DeMeo said.
DeMeo also expects contributions from some younger guys who have moved up from Johnston’s junior varsity team.
Johnston’s JV squad has had quite a bit of success, winning the D-III states a season ago.
The D-III landscape has changed a bit from last season to this season. With teams shuffling, D-III has gone from having four sub-divisions to just three. The Panthers will play in Division III-Central this year.
In terms of a playoff picture, the RIIL will continue with the same playoff format. Each team in the state will receive a certain amount of points for a league win – one point for a D-I win, .8 points for a D-II win and .6 points for a D-III win.
At the conclusion of the season, each Division will have a tournament, then the top 16 teams with the highest point totals in the state will play a single-elimination tournament for the state title.
Other players on this year’s roster are Tyler Clarke, Tyler Nasisi, Korey Fijal, Aaron Perfetto, Jacob Dannenfelser and Joshua Tineo.
DeMeo will be joined on the bench by assistant coaches Ed Bedrosian, Kyle Noritian and Mark Livingston.
The Panthers will host an injury fund game against Cumberland tonight at 7 p.m., before playing in the Pink Madness Classic at Ponaganset on Saturday. Johnston is set to play West Warwick at 3 p.m. in the first game of that tournament.
“We’re going to go through growing pains,” DeMeo said. “We just want to get better every day and learn from our mistakes.”
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