The South Hardin boys basketball team is a couple of weeks away from beginning their 2025-26 season.
South Hardin’s 2024–25 campaign ended with a Class 2A second-round playoff loss to Manson-NW Webster. The Tigers finished 12-12 overall and 3-5 in conference play, with seven of those losses coming by nine points or fewer. Head Coach John Phillips says the experience gained in tight contests should help the team this season.
“Just the experience of being in those games,” says Phillips. “Some of the kids last year, they never saw varsity experience before. The speed of the game, how strong some of the other players were, the atmospheres. And we just had a lot of really good experiences last year. And sometimes the score didn’t always come out in our favor, but the kids really battled. I think that’s really gonna help us this year.”
As preseason practices get underway, Phillips says the Tigers are aiming higher this season, with a clear postseason goal already in mind.
“We obviously want to get a conference title and then make a deep playoff push to get to state and then we’ll see what happens from there,” says Phillips.
The Tigers return seven seniors to the lineup, all of whom saw varsity action last season, including Jake Balvanz and Sam Benson, who combined to score just over one-third of the team’s points a year ago.
Full interview with Head Coach John Phillips;
