Boys basketball: Scouting Barrington

Barrington

Coach: Bryan Tucker (third year, 36-24; 16th yr overall, 274-148)

Last year: 19-11, 7-3 (MSL West tri-champs)

Key losses: Tyler Weathered (all-area G, 12.7 ppg, 3.9 apg, 52 3s, Lake Forest), Greg Gerrard (all-area F, 9.7 ppg, 3.4 rpg, 2.5 apg), Owen Prunskis (F, 3.7 ppg), Mitch Smith (F), Lukas Osmundsen (C, 5.6 ppg)

Returning players: Seniors John Schneider (6-7, C, 10.7 ppg), Jackson Wegner (6-1, G), Taylor Ganzer (6-1, G), Mark Bennett (6-5, F, 6.3 ppg), Ryan Carroll (6-2, G), Edward Stack (6-3, F); juniors Brad Zaumseil (6-1, G, 7.7 ppg, 22 3s), Scott Nelson (6-0, G)

Newcomers: Senior Lee Conforti (6-4, C); juniors Eric Slingo (5-9, G), Raymond Tolentino (5-9, G), Robby Vollman (6-2, F), Vinnie Tuzil (6-2, F).

Outlook: Barrington has a solid returning nucleus from its first trip to an MSL title game since 1979 in the Western Illinois-bound Schneider, Zaumseil at the point and Bennett. But the Broncos also graduated two of the better defenders Tucker has coached in Gerrard and Prunskis from a team that allowed 49.7 points a game. "After that we don't have many kids with much game experience," Tucker said. "We clearly have some growing up do, especially on the defensive end, as a team." Schneider has continued his improvement and also doesn't have any distractions with his college future and Zaumseil also made similar progress. Tucker said Bennett "may have made the biggest strides this summer" and has made a quick transition from quarterbacking the football team into the playoffs. Ganzer, who just returned from an injury, Wegner and Nelson all saw some minutes at guard last year and Stack and Carroll progressed in the summer to play key roles. Conforti didn't play last year but Tucker said "he's picking things up and he looks good" as he should help inside. "It looks early for us on both sides of the ball," Tucker said. "The details are significant and what some people refer to as the little things are not little things to us."