Offensively, Plano struggled far more often than not last season, but is optimistic that it will be much improved, with big men Griffin Cross and Robbie Taylor leading the way.

“Robbie Taylor might be the most skilled big man in the area,” Reapers coach Kyle Kee said. “He can do a lot of big things – shoot the 3, take guys off the dribble, has really good post moves. Our offense is going to run through him. He should be a very good player for us.”

Cross, who averaged 6.7 points a game last year, Cedric Walton (6 ppg), Damian Barraza (5.6 ppg) and Taylor (5.3 ppg) had comparable numbers a season ago and are back in the mix.

“We have a pretty good group coming back,” Kee said. “Cedric Walton is a big one. He’s been up since being a sophomore and provides great leadership and has dominated every rebounding drill. I think he’s going to have a great year, and he can shoot it.”

Taylor said he committed himself in the offseason to working on his defense, ball handling and free throws.

“I also worked on speed and agility, but they’ve always been a problem for me, and I consider getting quicker and faster and stuff like that as something I should always be working on,” Taylor said. “I’m hoping to be able to handle the ball and get into the offense and be a big leader on the offensive and defensive end.”

Last year, Kee repeatedly endured shooting woes. He hopes Walton can alleviate some of that, along with senior Gabe Rodriguez, as well as a pair of juniors who moved into the district, Stanley Smith and Zion Curry, and sophomore Mason Accidentale, who Kee thinks will be the Reapers’ best shooter.

“We got the new kids who moved in that we’re trying to figure out,” Kee said. “But with those guys and Mason we should shoot the ball better than last year. We were pretty awful at it last year.”

While most teams will get their feet wet in a Thanksgiving tournament, the Reapers will be gobbling up a full week of valuable practice since they aren’t opening until Dec. 3 at Newark.

“I think it’s good that we can take our time preparing,” Kee said. “The last couple of years we thought we were further along than we were, so we’re not taking any shortcuts.”

Basic basketball is being stressed big-time from the get-go.

“Coaches are making an emphasis on us doing what we’re supposed to be doing fundamentally right,” Taylor said. “We need to know how to be setting good screens, hitting open shots and getting after it in order to win big games.”

Many of those big games will also be Interstate Eight Conference ones.

“I think we should be pretty competitive, but this conference is going to be a challenge having to go home and home with everybody,” Kee said. “It’s not going to matter who is good and who is bad. It’s going to be a dogfight every night. So right now we’re just trying to get tough.”