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The timing wasn’t the one factor serendipitous about Dix’s return to East Corridor after main Collins Hill to 56 wins and a pair of state match appearances over the previous 4 seasons.
By sheer coincidence, the person he changed because the Eagles’ head coach, Ty Baumgardner, who spent the previous 4 seasons at Topeka Excessive Faculty in Kansas, jumped on the likelihood to return to the Lawrenceville faculty after Dix left to come back again to East Corridor.
“Ty and I form of laughed about that,” Dix stated with amusing. “We simply form of flip-flopped for slightly bit.”
As acquainted as the environment at East Corridor are for Dix, the Vikings program he comes again to after his 4 seasons away is sort of a bit completely different.
Most notably, there are a variety of new faces within the locker room, on the ground and the bench that he has to be taught and get to know.
The truth is, senior guard Levi Holtzclaw is admittedly the one Vikings participant has a lot familiarity with, and even that may be a considerably oblique.
“It’s been 4 years, so there’s no children, clearly, that I coached (on the highschool stage) the final time I used to be right here,” Dix stated. “A few of these children in this system now, I had them at youth camp and that form of factor once they had been youthful. After all, Levi Holtzclaw, who’s certainly one of our higher gamers, I coached all of his brothers in our program. So there may be actually some symmetry so far as that goes.”
For what it’s value, Holtzclaw remembers his expertise enjoying in Dix’s youth camp very effectively.
And as far a 6-foot senior guard is anxious, from what he’s seen from Dix throughout practices and video games, it’s virtually as if he by no means actually left.
“All the things is precisely the identical,” stated Holtzclaw, who averaged 10 factors and a pair of.5 assists per sport as a junior final 12 months. “All the things – his character, the camps are the identical. I realized aggressiveness, simply learn how to play aggressive (from Dix).”
What there isn’t a lot symmetry in, at the very least to Dix, is the model of basketball he has coached all through his profession and what the returning Vikings gamers have been used to all through their highschool careers.
However whereas he is aware of there might be some changes vital for the crew to his up-tempo, end-to-end method, Dix likes what he’s seen with how the crew is taking to what he’s educating.
“(Former East Corridor coach) Tommy (Yancey) did an ideal job with these guys, however the model of play is completely completely different from what we’re attempting to do now,” Dix stated. “In order that’s been an adjustment for (the gamers). There was no one right here who had a base for that, so we’re educating it from the bottom up.”
The opposite large adjustment each Dix and his gamers must make might be with the make-up of the brand new Area 8-4A.
It’s not essentially which groups are within the area lineup, however the sheer variety of them, with 11 groups being subdivided into two subregions.
“If you discuss an 11-team area and having to play crossover video games (within the different subregion) to get in, that creates a state of affairs the place moving into the state match actually is a monumental achievement,” Dix stated. “I’ve been very sincere with the fellows about that. There are going to be some good groups in our area that aren’t going to make the state match. There are simply so many groups. There’s no means round that.
“That being stated, each night time’s going to be a battle. Clearly, we play all people — we cross over and play all people on the opposite aspect as soon as and all people on our aspect twice. That’s a variety of familiarity between the groups, so it’s actually going to come back all the way down to who’s enjoying effectively on the finish of the 12 months.”
It could take a while for Dix and the Vikings to see how each will reply throughout his homecoming.
Whereas rather a lot stays unknown, one factor he does know is that he’s early trying ahead to the trip, and that when the highway of the trip that’s the 2022-23 season ends, it will likely be at residence.
“I’m seeking to see how a lot (the gamers are) capable of embrace what we’re doing,” Dix stated. “They’ve been actually enthusiastic about it early. After all, when you begin enjoying and begin handing out enjoying time, you by no means understand how these issues can go. However I’ve been very excited with the way in which they’ve actually embraced a completely completely different model of play.”
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