Dunk and shooting competitions, poster signings, a new scoreboard, future Trojans galore on the menu today for boys basketball maroon & gold scrimmage that starts at 6 p.m.

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Chesterton sophomore basketball player Bradly Basila, junior Malachi Ransom and several players from the high school’s younger boys teams watched the Trojans girls basketball team’s victory over Munster Friday night in front of a big crowd.
Basila, Ransom and their eight varsity teammates will go from watchers to the watched in front of a big crowd today at 6 p.m., where the maroon and gold scrimmage gives the public its first look at coach Marc Urban’s 10th Chesterton team.
The festivities include a shooting competition and a dunk contest.
As Basila made his way down the bleachers after the girls game Friday night, he stopped to answer a question: Will you beat Tommy Kostbade in the dunk competition?
“I will, I will,” Basila said and then flashed his infectious smile. “Of course I will.”
If Basila is considered the favorite, then the sophomore Kostbade is the sleeper to take home dunking honors, and if senior Logan Pokorney is the people’s choice to win the shooting competition, then Kostbade’s lefty classmate Cooper Huwig is the sleeper for the shooting competition.
The skills competitions are sure to send the volume in the main gymnasium soaring and if it sounds a little more high-pitched than on most nights, there is a reason for that.
The 200 or so youth basketball players from the Chesterton in-house league that starts Sunday pick up their equipment before the scrimmage and will have prime seats for the night of entertainment, their imaginations on fast-forward as they picture themselves throwing down dunks and tickling the twine as the crowd goes wild.
For the scrimmage portion of the night, varsity players go against each other and then head out to the hall to sign posters that will end up on bedroom walls. JV, freshman, and also middle school teams from Liberty and Westchester will scrimmage while the varsity players sign.
The new scoreboard, hovering above center court, will add a big-time feel to the atmosphere that screams Indiana high school basketball at its finest.
As always, Urban wants the team to take more than the love of fans from the evening: “It’s good for our guys to get people in the stands, and now you have to play with officials, where it’s the first time that it’s like, ‘Are you going to continue to do your job? Because your mom and dad are in the stands and you can smell the popcorn, are you going to try to be something that you haven’t been all fall, all practice?’”
Successful basketball coaches, typically armed with boundless energy and Type A personalities, hammer into the minds of their players to maximize every possession, whether in practices, scrimmages and ultimately games that count.
“There’s a job to do on every possession and you have to do your job,” Urban said. “You’re prepping for that, and then you have to apply it with the competitive spirit, the right mindset.”
The Trojans open their season Nov. 29 at 6:30 p.m. at Elkhart. First, they’ll open eyes and jaws with an entertaining night.