Q & A with BIC Mustang Jax Whitley By : Ryan Fletcher
1 . Talk about the senior year coming up . What expectations do y ’ all have set for the season ? I would like my senior year to be my best year , as many would . Last year was a pretty decent year for me , but my team and I didn ’ t end the season off how we would have liked . This year I hope to win our conference again and make a good run in state .
2 . Do you have any individual expectations you ’ d like to accomplish ? The main individual expectation I have would be to reach 1000 points in my high school career . 3 . Last season you guys were not given any respect and you won your conference . What was that feeling like to prove everyone wrong ? We all knew that we were better than everyone was saying , so it felt good to prove people wrong . It was a shame we couldn ’ t make it to regionals though .
4 . You have played for two coaches in your high school career . What has been different about each experience ? Both experiences have been pretty good . My sophomore season , my team was really good and I was still smaller than most so I didn ’ t get to play as much as I would have liked . Last year I grew and became a better player and leader under Coach Layne . He believed in me and helped guide me to where I am today .
5 . Coach Layne early last season even preseason felt you were going to breakout . What ’ s it like getting that vote of confidence from him and what ’ s it like playing for him ? Getting the vote of confidence from him was unexpected because the coaches and players before me never really gave me a chance . This made me feel good about myself , but also nervous because I didn ’ t want to let him and others down . Playing under Coach Layne has been a great experience because he can joke around but also be serious when he needs to be .
6 . You are no longer the 2A-3 ’ s best kept secret . You are now an all-conference player and on everyone ’ s scouting report . How do you prep for that , and what do you still feel like you got to do to get even better ? At the beginning of the season last year I found it pretty easy to score because most teams didn ’ t guard me like they do now . Once I had a few good games I began to get face guarded and ran off the three-point line . This was tough to figure out how to still score like my team needed , but with some more experience I figured it out pretty well by learning to take advantage of open shots and know when to go get a bucket . This year we have two other incredible scorers , so it will be easier to get open shots now that there are other scorers that have to be focused on as well .