Greyhounds Building Program One Season At A Time

Despite dropping its seventh loss of the season 60-44 to Pewaukee Wednesday night, the Greyhounds' season is looking up.

The Shorewood boys basketball is on the verge — once again — of achieving its best regular season in at least a decade.

, and after finishing with an 11-12 record, the team seems to be building off last year's performance with a current 11-7 overall record, and 8-6 mark in the Woodland Conference. 

Led by Donovan Freeman and Andrew Davis, averaging 14.5 and 13 points per game respectively, the Greyhounds are slowly but surely catching their stride. 

The team is something head coach Phil Jones calls a work in progress, and getting better every time they hit the court. He has been at the helm for three seasons and has spoke of eliminating a losing mentality among the players and building a winning attitude.

"On all levels we are improving the program," he said. "Our JV team is ahead of last year's...our freshman team is better, the whole program is getting better."

There were three games this season Jones said his team would undoubtedly have won, had he had all of his starters on the floor. The team's leading rebounder and one of its top scorers Bobby Kohl missed four games and Donovan Freeman, the team's top scorer, missed a few games. 

"It's just building," he said. "When you're program is down it takes a lot to it bring it up and we've just got to keep working.

"We have to get the kids playing as much basketball as possible, that's pretty much the secret."

He said players have been participating in summer leagues, camps and opening up the gym on Saturday and Sundays to improve. 

"It's a full time job to make the program better; you've got to put the time in," he said. 

With building the program, Jones said you have to build your numbers and get students excited to join the team.

"You need the numbers to build a program and that means you have to win and you have to get the kids thinking basketball and that's our biggest job," he said. 

For its next game, the Greyhounds travel to St. Francis on Friday for a 7:30 p.m. conference match.