Greene County High School boys’ basketball head coach Chris Nelson enters his second season coaching in the community he grew up in. Nelson was a sharp shooting guard on successful Jefferson-Scranton teams in the early 2000’s. His 2016-17 Greene County team went 14-8 overall and placed second in the Heart of Iowa Activities Conference. Gone from that squad is Trey Tucker. The 2017 graduate left as the all-time leading boys’ basketball scorer for any Jefferson-based team.

Coach Nelson was asked about not having such a prolific scorer. “Trey was a heck of a player and we’re not going to replace that, but we’ve got, I think, four weapons that will be really tough for us. Then, we’ve got a bunch of other guys that are very capable of coming in, stepping up, and hitting some big shots. You’ll see an offense that’s probably a little different in that we’ll probably move the ball around a little bit more this year, but we’re still going to play up and down pretty fast.”

The coach was asked where the three-point shot may come into play. “We’re definitely not going to shy away from the threes, but we want to get paint touches and get it to the paint first because we’re definitely more efficient on those if we kick it out first instead of just launching.”

The Rams have some practice time before they open the 2017-18 campaign. The season opener is on Friday, Dec. 1 in the middle school gym in Jefferson vs. Gilbert as part of a girl/boy doubleheader.

You can hear Greene County HS girls and boys basketball again this season on KG98 and streamed on www.raccoonvalleyradio.com.