NASHVILLE (WSIL) -- There are six unbeaten high school boys basketball teams within our ¾ÅÓÎÌåÓý Illinois viewing area
Nashville is one of those teams.
We Go Beyond the Highlights to find out why the Hornets are so successful to begin the season.
"We're pretty pretty meat and potatoes, we're not, nothing fancy, let's just go play, we're going to try and guard you and stay in front of you and try to take good shots," Nashville Boys Basketball Head Coach Wayne Harre said.
The formula sounds simple enough. Take good shots. If you watch Nashville play, nothing is forced on the offensive end.
"We don't like to force shots, our coaches always preach that in practice," Nashville senior Jaxon Goforth said.
"Coach Harre really pushes us to get the best shot on every possession and get the best out of every possession, we don't want to waste any possessions and I think that's what helps win ball games," Nashville senior Buzz Ritzel said.
"You can't take any one possession for granted because you may be in a position where one possession may coast you a game," Harre said. "We try to treat every possession like it means something. If you get a turnover, you don't want another turnover on a possession so we do preach that a lot in practice. We want a shot every time we don't, a bad shot maybe counts as a turnover so again that's huge for us."
And they do a good job of finding the hot hand.
"We believe in each other and always seem to find each other," Goforth said. We believe in everybody on the team We feel we all are capable of making shots."
"Get this feeling, that once I see it go in the hoop I just take off, gives me good confidence," Nashville junior Isaac Turner said. "I feel I can finish anytime I go in there and I've got that confidence."
I've seen Isaac hit a buzzer beater from half court and make the tough layup. And warning to the opposition, when he recognizes he's in that zone, watch out.
"The hoop gets bigger and you feel like everything is going to go in and you're just out there playing. You're not really thing. You're just doing what you've always been doing your whole life."
They also take pride in giving effort on the defensive end. They are fundamentally sound, and well coached.
"Just from Coach, he preaches that every day. Make sure we are doing the little things right. Jump to the ball, meet the pass, throw good hard passes, don't try and you don't get any extra points for, you don't get any fancy points is what they always say. Just play fundamental basketball and you'll be alright."
I've been to two Nashville games this season. I've seen them play with a comfortable lead and watched them rally back from being down double digits. No matter what the situation is, look over to the sidelines, and you'll find Coach Harre fired up. He didn't win 500 career games by accident. Coach Harre never stops coaching, and his his kids feed of his energy.
"I like it I mean he just keeps pushing us to be the best we can and really gets us in gear and gets us energized," Ritzel said.
"He never lets off us," Turner added. "He wants the best for us and wants us to be the best we can be and so whenever we are up 30 if we do something wrong, we are going to hear about it. He's not going to let us slide 'cause it's going to get us prepared for games later on down the road."
This is a confident group. They've blown teams out and they've had to dig down deep to grind out a win.
When you win those types of games do you develop a little bit of a swagger.
"Yeah but you've got to stay humble obviously but you 've got to stay in the game and keep going no matter if you're up 15 or down 15 you've got to keep the same mentality, just work hard, play as hard as you can," Ritzel said.
