It has been no secret that Tewksbury High’s basketball program lost a lot this off season in terms of players and personnel. Head coach Phil Connors resigned shortly after the season was over last year and took a job as the head coach at Burlington High School. The head coaching position will be taken over by former Tewksbury JV coach, Tom Bradley. The team also lost 4 out of its 5 starters, including their 1,000 point scorer and best player Nate Tenaglia. The Redmen also lost a big chunk of its role players including Sean Moose and Brian Nazzire. This season does have the potential to surprise a lot of people and there are plenty of bright spots for the group. The lone survivor from last year’s starting group is junior guard Gio Ciampa. Gio will undoubtedly be the team’s best player and will look to take over as the primary scoring option in wake of Tenaglia. His supporting cast will include returners junior guard David Giuggio, senior guard Danny Priest, senior guard Mike Catanzano, senior center Steve Catanzano, and a slew of others who will be competing for varsity positions. This team has many different options for lineups that could really frustrate some teams in the MVC. The starting lineup could be a number of things, but my guess is that it will be Giuggio and Mike Catanzano at guard, Lorick and Ciampa at forward, and Steve Catanzano at center. The Redmen will have a very deep bench led by Priest, Cam Kelly, Brandon Winn, Joe Rosberg, and potentially some young guys in the sophomore tandem of Adam Pacheco and Connor Brincklow. Coach Bradley could put together a very athletic lineup of Giuggio, Ciampa, Lorick, Winn, and either Steve Catanzano or Joe Rosberg at center or he could have them play small ball and put out a lineup of Mike Catanzano, David Giuggio, Danny Priest, Gio Ciampa, and Steve Catanzano. The small ball lineup would have the potential to put up an absurd amount of points with its own “splash brothers” combination of Priest, Ciampa, and Giuggio. However, scoring will not as easy as it may seem for the inexperienced team. The Redmen will have to pride themselves on the defensive end and push the break if they want to score. A lot of the guys on this team have never played a minute of varsity basketball, so they won’t be able to just jump into the lineup and score as they please. There will definitely be an adjusting period at the beginning of the season, but that’s expected with an inexperienced team such as this and I truly think they will make the necessary adjustments and be a sleeper team in the MVC this year.