Week one of practice for the ADM boy’s basketball team is in the books, and week two begins with a varsity jamboree tonight at Woodward-Granger. Perry will play Saydel while the Tigers will take on the host Hawks in a exhibition at 6:30 p.m.

The Tigers will play a pair of eight-minute halves for their first action against outside competition this preseason. It also marks the first chance for ADM to show its better than it was a year ago, when the Tigers finished a disappointing 6-16.

Hope tends to spring eternal in the preseason, and thanks to a solid returning group of underclassmen, junior forward Jacob Hardy said he thinks ADM can in fact turn things around this season. One reason is because ADM suffered through so many close losses the previous year.

The Tigers dropped 10 games by 10 points or fewer and half of those games by five points or fewer last season. So was ADM perhaps better than its record indicated?

“We definitely were. We have a lot of potential,” Hardy said. “I feel like we could be at least over .500. We could be more if we really push ourselves to it. We have a chance to be great this year.”

Head coach Aaron Mager told Raccoon Valley Radio that in those close losses last season, ADM would play good basketball for 28-30 minutes only to be sunk by a bad stretch of sloppy basketball often defined by multiple turnovers. He’ll get his first chance to see if the Tigers are dedicated to play cleaner basketball this season tonight at Woodward-Granger.