Marble Falls boys hoops finishes league play

CAPTION: Marble Falls juniors Charlie Martin (front) and Marc Barrios trap Llano junior guard Landon Magadance. The Marble Falls High School boys basketball team completed play in the Llano Summer League June 10 where the Mustangs experienced plenty of positives. Staff photo by Jennifer Fierro

“I would say I’m pleased for sure,” head coach John Berkman said. “Summer league is always an interesting mix. Kids are on vacations or they can’t make it because they’re working. You give them opportunities like that in the summer. You’re seeing if guys can play together, if they can work well and mesh well.”

Though he couldn’t coach his players, Berkman was in attendance each week. He saw the Mustangs use their pick-and-roll offense, transition from offense to defense and defense to offense, and other parts of the sport. With each passing week, the players grew more comfortable in playing together. Basketball is a game of reaction, and these Mustangs didn’t have to think as much about their role on each end. Rather, they moved to the proper spots offensively and rotated correctly defensively.

That was what encouraged Berkman the most.

“You can see what they do naturally and what they’re coached to do,” he said. “Summer league is where they take the opportunity to show their coach. You learn if I can shoot that shot or make that move or make that mistake I want to correct.”

The class of 2027 is the program’s biggest when it comes to playing nothing but basketball. But the seniors also took advantage of their minutes on the court, too. And some newcomers to the varsity level also played. No team ran a full-court press; most dropped back into their half-court man-to-man defense. And teams didn’t allow easy breakaway layups either.

“There were opportunities to play at a higher level and see what they feels like,” Berkman said, adding lessening the gap between the starters and the reserves is always a priority.

“That’s when you end up with a successful team,” he said. “You don’t want there to be a big drop-off in game playing style. We want to be able to run our stuff and not change our style of ball. The more we can close that gap, the better.”

Llano head coach Landry Norwood, who served as the league director, created a middle school division and a junior varsity division along with the varsity division.

“In our JV group, we had more guys playing summer league,” Berkman said. “I know it’s more than we had last year. Having that many participate and want to play is encouraging. We had 25-30 who participated between the three teams. We had good groups. We didn’t win all the games. And you always want to play to win.”

The number of Mustangs who made their way to Llano each week spoke volumes to the coach about how they felt about committing to being there and competing with solid effort.

“We’re looking for guys to get an opportunity,” he said. “It’s not a tryout – we have a long time to make that decision. It gives us a lot of good information.”

CAPTION: Marble Falls forward Cypress Neve sprints to the other end for a quick bucket. Staff photo by Jennifer Fierro