Losing nearly your entire roster as they move up to Varsity, including your top scorer and nearly all your best players, would be an almost impossible challenge for any coach. But for JV Basketball Coach Elmer Anderson, it’s simply another setback he’s taken head on.
Having lost his bonafide leader and superstar, Tavious Scott, who averaged over 19 points per game last season, Anderson faced the difficult task of filling those gaps with a roster of 18 newcomers, and the few returning players who weren’t counted on for major minutes last season.
“They’re all inexperienced,” said Anderson. “They’ve never experienced high school competition.”
With so many new players unaccustomed to the high standard that Anderson expects, he was quick to admit that he had to change the way he approached the structure of the season.
“I didn’t want to rush them into any games, so what I chose to do was to just do a lot of practicing – going over fundamentals and also to see who can play now against better competition,” he said. Still needing to weed out leaders and top players, Anderson added that “[He] didn’t want their confidence to get damaged early.”
“I thought we would have a chance, but I realized they haven’t played,” Anderson emphasized.
Despite the thought and care Anderson put intoorganizing the pre-season, his team faced major adversity right away. Playing Brooklyn Collegiate, an AA team, Tech was resoundingly defeated, losing 58-33. For Anderson, however, the game was more than a loss. It was a wake-up call, confirming his concerns about the early stages of his team’s development.
Even with initial disappointment and a team still figuring itself out, the key players and team leaders began to stick out from the rest of the pack. “Rishabh [Patel] (‘27) has been excelling,” complimented Anderson. “He plays every position for me because he’s that talented skill-wise.”
The stats back up his coach’s claim, as Patel has averaged seven points, seven rebounds and nearly five assists per game so far this season.
Patel is not the only player contributing to the team’s rise this season. Siam Huu Nguyen (‘27) has been, arguably, the most consistent player on the offensive end, averaging over 12 points per game, a nearly five point increase from his performance last season. “Siam can just flat out score the ball; it’s a natural thing for him,” said Anderson.
Despite such praise, Anderson continues to demand more from Siam, especially on the defensive end of the floor. “One of the things [Nguyen] has to continue to improve on, that I’m demanding from him, is better effort defensively,” explained Anderson.
The non-conference schedule has given Coach Anderson great confidence in the ability of his team, with three consecutive wins against Stuyvesant, Benjamin Banneker Academy, and Martin Van Buren during the New Year’s Classic.
“The talent is there, the toughness is there,” said a confident Anderson.
Two months since Tech’s opening loss to Brooklyn Collegiate, Anderson’s team has rattled off seven wins in the last eight games – including one against George Westinghouse, against whom they’ve been entrenched in an extremely competitive division title race.
In their emphatic 62-33 win away at Westinghouse, Nguyen led the Engineers with 27 points, including five three-pointers. His performances down the stretch have not only perfectly reflected the words of his coach, but also contributed greatly to the Engineers’ fourth consecutive division title, in the face of a whole new set of challenges to reach that goal.
Even now, with the Engineers securing the division titles, there is no doubt that it has been a challenging process since they started in the fall; a process that has provided Anderson countless learning experiences for his team.
“There was one game where we turned the ball over more than the other team attempted field goals,” recalled Anderson.
Difficult moments like that have undoubtedly frustrated a coach with the experience he has, but with the inexperience of his team, he has had to approach it in a more constructive way. “It can’t happen, but it’s a whole process,” proclaimed Anderson.
With the city playoffs looming, the Engineers will look to put the heartbreak of previous years — albeit with a different roster — behind them and focus on making another deep run.
While the luck of the draw can twist in seemingly unfair ways in terms of who the Engineers will face, Anderson had only one word on if his team could get it done: “Absolutely.”
