The East Islip Basketball program hosted its annual tryouts on November 18th – November 20th in the high school gym in order to find new talents from both the JV and Varsity team that can help them build a program and win a title.

Led by long-time coaches Coach Schwender and Coach Madden, the tryouts mainly focused on drills that help with ball handling, shooting, court spacing, passing, and defense. They also had some 3 on 3 scrimmages.  

Numerous players, coaches, and any basketball related staff attended the tryouts. As a player, in order to attend, you need to fill out forms on the Final Form website and send it to the coach.

In the tryouts, those who were successful had to have good communication and sportsmanship as well as having good basketball skills. 

Returning players on the basketball program describe the tryouts as hard and competitive.

The team has been set and has begun practicing. The team has high expectations for the year. 

“I believe that we can win our League Championship and go deep in the playoffs,” senior forward James Mendoza said. “We work really hard as a team and We’ve been playing together for a  long time. I hope that we could just use our chemistry to take ourselves on a deep playoff run.”

According to Maxpreps.com the East Islip Varsity Basketball team finished last season with a record 12-9 and made the playoffs but lost to Bellport in the first round.

Their first game is a non-league game at home against Lindenhurst at 2:00pm on December 7th.