With four starters gone, Irish boys: ; face long road back to state title form; High school basketball; Charleston Catholic boys

While the spotlight shone brightly on Huntington High's threeconsecutive Class AAA state titles, Charleston Catholic stayed underthe radar a bit and also enjoyed tremendous success.

The Irish have won back-to-back Class A boys basketball statetitles but just like the more-publicized Highlanders of a year ago,both championship teams have lost tremendous talent, heading intothis season.

If Catholic is to win its third straight state title, it willhave to replace four starters that accounted for 90 percent of theteam's scoring and rebounding last year.

"Those are two pretty big gaps to fill," said Catholic Coach BillMcClanahan. "We've had some wonderful success the last couple years,and we hope we have established some of the foundation elements of agood program."

Despite the fact that the Irish have lost so much talent fromlast year's championship team, McClanahan is equally as excitedabout this year's squad.

"This is going to be an exciting and interesting year for us,"McClanahan said. "This may be the most eager-to-learn team that I'veever had in the time I've been coaching here."

However, McClanahan is very aware that this year's team issignificantly different than last, and the road to the statetournament will be much more difficult.

"This years group, it's a different year, different team,"McClanahan said. "They are not as basketball skilled as previousteams at this point, and their basketball IQ is not quite as high.

"But their attitude and work ethic is great. The only thing theylack is game experience and the only way to you get that is playinggames," McClanahan said.

While few of the players have much game experience, seven of thetop 11 players are seniors and have witnessed the program's rise thelast several years first hand.

"Most of the players haven't necessarily had quality minutes butthey have been part of a very successful program," McClanahan said."They know the work that it takes and the attitude they have tohave. We are hoping that program atmosphere kicks in and allows themto grow and develop at a pace that will help us be successful."

Catholic will rely heavily on 6-foot-4 senior center John Busse,the lone returning starter for the Irish.

"We are expecting big things from John," McClanahan said. "As asenior now, he has been in the program for four years, has been inbig games and started some big games.

"He's a good leader, leads us in practice, and now we need him tolead us in the games. It's his turn.

"He' a senior and needs to step up."

McClanahan expects Busse to be a dominating force on the insideand be one of Catholic's top scorers and rebounders.

"John has been able to score double figures a couple times and hecould rebound double digits," McClanahan said. "This year, from ourperspective, he needs to average a double double every night.

"For us to be as good as we can be this year, John Busse isreally going to have to expand into the player we think he iscapable of.

In order for us to be the best we can be, he needs to do that."

The other six seniors McClanahan will be counting on are SeanRiley, Andrew Cassis, Tommy Dexter, Dominic Tallerico, CoreyBonasso, and Steve Carey.

Despite a completely different team this season compared to theprevious back-to-back Irish state championship squads, the goalremains the same for McClanahan.

"This team will be a work in progress and our hope, ourexpectation, is that if they continue to improve with each game,then come March, we think we can be competitive," McClanahan said.

"Where that leads us, we aren't sure, but we think it will get ustournament ready."