The ADM boy’s basketball team struggled to a 6-16 record last season, but the Tigers weren’t necessarily as bad as their record indicates.

As head coach Aaron Mager put it, the Tigers would play well for the vast majority of many games only to be sunk by a stretch of sloppy basketball.

“We would play, oh, in a 32 minute game last year — we would put about 27 to 29 really good minutes of basketball together, and then somewhere in the game, generally in the second half, we would have a little stretch where we’d turn the ball over back-to-back before you could really get a timeout called,” Mager said. “And that six-point swing sometimes — I don’t know how many games we lost last year between five and seven points, where we have a lead or were right there, and then that’s just too big of a gap to close in the fourth quarter.”

The answer is that ADM lost eight games by seven points or fewer last season. Mager stressed that taking better care of the ball is a big point of emphasis heading into the 2014-15 season.

The boy team’s first practice is on Monday, Nov. 17, and the Tigers open their season the following Monday at Saydel.