Photo by Kyle Parmley.
Homewood Basketball
Marcello Nanni (1) is one of four returning playersHomewood is counting on to have a big season in 2019-20.
Tim Shepler has four players on his Homewood High School boys basketball team that he would consider known commodities. He’s looking for a handful of others to step up during the 2019-20 season and push themselves into that category.
“We’ve got some players,” said Shepler, who enters his 25th season at the helm of the program. “Bo Barber, PJ Davis, Marcello Nanni, Pate Owen. We’ve got some guys coming back, but after those guys, it’s all new.”
Barber, Davis, Nanni and Owen contributed heavily to the Patriots’ success last season. Homewood advanced to the Class 6A sub-regional round of the playoffs, where the Patriots took eventual state champion Pinson Valley to overtime before falling just short.
The Patriots graduated 10 seniors from last year’s team, meaning much of this season’s roster consists of first-year varsity players.
As for the players Homewood knows it can count on, Barber is a lights-out shooter. Davis is just a sophomore that Shepler said is “starting to come into his own.” Shepler called Nanni the most consistent senior, and he led the team in charges taken last year. Owen was the football team’s quarterback that “is going to punch in every day, go to work and do his thing.”
“Those four are really the foundation right now, so we’re just seeing what else there is around those guys,” Shepler said.
Homewood’s senior class is six deep this season, beginning with Nanni and Owen. Trey Rouse, Jordan Davis, Nic Amison, Griffin Vail and Pierce Dalton will all be counted on in a significant way. Rouse is a strong shooter, and Dalton is a 6-foot-6 forward who has signed a lacrosse scholarship to play at Drexel University.
Len Irvine, Carter Vail, Woods Ray, Trip Chapman, Brady Donlon and Lucas Padgett will also suit up for the Patriots this winter.
Shepler has seen it happen before, when an under-the-radar player bursts onto the scene and becomes a big contributor to the team’s success. The Patriots will need at least a few of the newcomers to become reliable options over the course of a long season.
“We’re going to have to find some depth or else we’ll have tired legs by February,” he said.
One thing Shepler is confident about is the Patriots’ potential to be a strong defensive team, which has long been a Homewood staple.
“We’ve got a lot of capability defensively and we’re going to need that to neutralize some people,” Shepler said. “I think we’ve got a chance to be really good on that side of the ball.”
Even though the Patriots have more questions than answers at the outset of the season, Shepler is high on this team’s potential.
“If these guys can get locked in, we’ll know a lot by Christmas,” he said. “If we’re in pretty good shape at Christmas, I think we might shake it up a little bit.”
During the month of December, Homewood plays the likes of Pelham, Chelsea, Vestavia Hills, Calera, Thompson and Tallassee. The Patriots will also play in Oak Mountain’s tournament and host the annual Metro Tournament.
