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Assistant coach Jay Collins keeps up a steady rhythm of shouts, mostly instructions and assistance.
Head coach Bill Evans expects, no, demands, his players have a good time, and that means attacking every rebounding drill or defensive workout with enthusiasm.
Evans’ guys are constantly yelling at each other tidbits of encouragement while always clapping, clapping, clapping. There is a lot of clapping. It’s omnipresent. And as they run an offensive set, each player screams where he’s going off a screen.
When the Bengals are scrimmaging, Collins is wailing, players’ shoes are screeching and defenders howl out screens. It’s a cacophony of noise that’s the soundtrack to Idaho State’s preseason basketball practices as they prepare for the 2013-14 basketball season.
Amongst the racket is Idaho State senior Tomas Sanchez.
Sanchez, who graduated from Shorewood High School just outside of Seattle, Wash., is back for his second and final season as the Bengals starting point guard.
He fits into the noise of Reed Gym, fading into it at times, but make no mistake, Sanchez is one of the team’s leaders. He’s a Kool-Aid drinker, and his maturation from last season could define Idaho State’s success when it begins this year with an exhibition match Nov. 4.
Sanchez is not the loudest player at practice. He isn’t chatty. That’s not his personality. But he might be the most competitive. When he speaks, teammates listen.
“(Sanchez) knows the importance he has on this team, what he can do for us and how much he can take us to the next level,” said junior wing Chris Hansen. “He’s embraced it and he’s really accepted it and taken it head on.”
As a junior, the 6-foot-3 guard started in 29 games and averaged 10.3 points, 3.9 assists and 3.3 rebounds per game. Those numbers were fine, but Sanchez spent the summer working out with graduate assistant David Marek to improve his strength. He added 5 to 7 pounds.
“It’s natural that every year you want to get stronger, but after last year going through the Big Sky, I noticed it would be a lot easier if I was stronger,” Sanchez said.
Plus, Sanchez says, his confidence has kicked up another notch. He knocked down three game-winning shots a year ago, and even though Idaho State finished with a league-worst 6-24 record, he feels like he belongs in the conference.
Evans sees the development. He sees the physical strength but also the poise of a senior point guard who’s accepted the leadership role.
“In all my years of coaching, I don’t know if I’ve ever been around a better person, a more caring person, a more respectful person than Tomas Sanchez,” Evans said. “I’ve coached a lot of guys.
“If I told him to roll around from one end of the floor to the other, he wouldn’t even look at me. He’d just start rolling.”
Sanchez’s role on the team extends beyond his influence from a leadership perspective, of course, he needs to score, too.
Idaho State averaged a league-low 57 points a game last season. The margin between the conference’s second-highest squad, Montana State (70.6) and 10th-highest, Sacramento State (64.7), was smaller than the difference from the Hornets to the Bengals.
Some of that was by design. Evans wanted to play slow. But with athletic guys like Jeffrey Solarin and Evann Hall added to the roster, the Bengals will seek opportunities to play faster.
"We’ve got guys that can get up and down, and I think coach trusts me as a decision maker on the break,” Sanchez said. “And I just think we need easy buckets. We didn’t get a lot of easy buckets (last season), so hopefully running we can get a couple a game. That can be the difference.”
Sanchez is hinting at the idea that if Idaho State can add a few layups in transition, the Bengals can strangle teams defensively and find more wins on the schedule.
Not that many outside of the Idaho State basketball program expect the Bengals to do that. College Basketball Talk’s Rob Dauster tabbed ISU 10th in his preseason poll.
Honestly, though, for Sanchez that’s all just outside noise.
“You’re going to use anything you can as motivation, and I just think we all want to prove people wrong and prove that we’ve improved a lot since last year,” Sanchez said. “Hopefully, we can ... make the tournament and surprise some people.”
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