From November 13-16, Pius X hosted tryouts for the boys basketball team, with the freshman tryouts having just finished on Thursday. A total of 50 boys showed up, with 30 of them being freshmen.

“For the older guys, it’s a little different as we’ve been evaluating them for years,” head basketball coach Adam Brill said. “But for the freshmen, it’s a little harder to get a reading in the four days of tryouts, so we’re a bit more diligent when observing them.”

The tryouts for sophomores and upperclassmen are often not as in-depth as for the freshmen, due to there being a smaller amount of them, and with those who are present already knowing their skills and place on the team.

“We can pretty much have our older kids done by Wednesday if we started on Monday, but our younger kids are sometimes done by Thursday, sometimes Monday, because we want to make sure we get it exactly right.”

One of the freshmen trying out was Henry Stempson, who finished up his final tryout Thursday.

“I think I played pretty well, I put in hard work, I think everybody put in hard work,” Stempson said. “I think we made it pretty stressful for the coaches to pick the team because there was a lot of talent.”

Brill shared similar sentiments, having a lot of faith in Pius X’s upcoming season.

“We just gotta focus on the process of becoming a better player, becoming a better teammate, and becoming a better team,” Brill said. “B.T.T.Y., better today than yesterday.”