Notre Dame basketball looking good

The start of their high school basketball season is four months away, but if any Mohawk Valley team can dare to hoop dream, it’s Notre Dame’s Jugglers.

 

How they played in a 69-38 win over Rome Free Academy in the SUNYIT Summer League final was encouraging, to say the least. Even Notre Dame coach Mike Durr, who’s never easy to impress, has to feel good about the Jugglers and the 2008-2009 season.

 

“I think we’re going to have some fun this year,” Durr said after the win.

 

There is much to look forward to, including the return of senior guards Matt Petrone and Jerrell Hunter, and juniors Pat Moore and Mike Hill. Petrone, who played AAU basketball with the Albany City Rocks’ 17-and-under team this year, is a left-handed point guard who will be more of an offensive threat. Hill is a sharpshooter who can score from long range, Hunter can hurt you inside and out, and Moore, an AAU standout on the Albany City Rocks’ 16-and-under team, just might be the Mohawk Valley area’s best player now that Thomas R. Proctor’s Deandre Preaster has moved on.

 

The Jugglers also have been bolstered by the addition of senior Caden Romeo, a physical forward who can rebound as well as score from the perimeter.

 

“He’s good inside, real tough down low,” said Moore. “We need somebody like that.”

 

You can expect Notre Dame to be deeper than it was last year, too, with Luke Manolescu, Mike Grace and Dylan Davis in the frontcourt and Tom Giglio at guard, to name just a few. And you know that Durr will have each and every one of them playing hard, especially on the defensive end, or else.

 

Yes, it’s early, but when Mike Durr starts talking about having some “fun” this year, that can’t be good news for the rest of the Tri Valley League. Stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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