The Cassville boys basketball team will be on the younger side this winter, all the more reason to make as much progress as possible in the summer.

Caleb Reynolds, Cassville boys hoops coach, said the Wildcats had a busy June, participating in a varsity shootout in Berryville, Ark., a JV shootout in Nixa and a two-day camp at the University of Missouri in Columbia.

“We played three to four games at each of those, and in Berryville, we were the only Missouri team there,” Reynolds said. “I prefer to not see teams in summer play that we will see during the season. Expectations were relatively low, but they greatly exceeded them.”

Reynolds said a challenge in the summer has been numbers, which is also forcing younger players into the varsity fold.

“We’ve been shorthanded at times, and we’re young this year, so we’ll have some sophomores getting some varsity minutes,” he said. “It will be a challenge, but we are ahead of where I expected us to be at this point.”

Reynolds said at the shootout and camp, Cassville was also on the smaller end, giving the Wildcats a challenge on the floor.

“The defensive side of things needs work, but many teams we faced were bigger, stronger and faster, and we had to adjust to the speed of the game,” he said. “Offensively, we need to be better at decision-making, because some things you can get away with playing JV, you can’t get away with it in varsity.”

Through the shootout, Reynolds said one major positive attribute stood out — coachability.

“We were getting better on the fly, and that was good to see,” he said. “We told the boys what adjustments to make, and they went out and did it or at least tried, so they are very coachable. Overall, I was pleased with what I saw.”

In Columbia specifically, Reynolds said the team not only learned, but they had fun and got to experience a big stage arena.

“We were short-handed for that so to get enough kids, we took some JV,” he said. “I don’t know all the kids had been to Columbia, and all the games were in Mizzou Arena. That’s a fun experience.”

All three games on day one, Cassville played private schools Reynolds said were more athletic than any teams the Wildcats will see in the regular season this year.

“We were challenged quite a bit, but we played hard,” Reynolds said. “On day two, we won a game in sudden death. We played defense for about 2 minutes as they passed the ball around, then they finally took a shot. We got the ball and took it down the court and scored for the win.”

As summer continues, the Wildcats will continue hosting open gyms and working on fundamentals, but most basketball players ate multi-sport athletes.

“We have guys who play football, run cross country and play soccer,” Reynolds said. “That’s great. The gap between football and basketball conditioning is not what it was even 10 years ago, and cross country and soccer conditioning will be there for basketball.

“And, those guys that don’t play other sports, we will start getting with them in September to work up to the first practice.”