McCallie Basketball Team Winning With Super-Sized Roster

   Does second year McCallie coach John Shulman have too much of a good thing? His roster is 18 players deep.

Said Shulman-"Is it about winning games? Is it about the experience for the kids? Or is it trying to do both? And we try to do both."

Reporter-"Have you ever seen that in high school basketball before. A team with almost 20 players."

Said forward Adrian Thomas-"I’ve never seen it. I’m glad to be apart of it, but I’ve never seen it. Ever."

    All that depth maximizes McCallie’s pressure defense.

Said forward Max Shulman-"Getting the press. Getting those stops. Being able to speed the game up so much. You get a hand on the ball in the press. Go shoot a lay-up. It’s just easy baskets."

    Space is tight on the McCallie bench, especially on the road.

Said Max Shulman-"Last year I didn’t play. I was hurt the whole year. I was in charge of getting chairs. They put chairs on the end of the bench. We had to get three or four more chairs just to fill our whole bench up."

Reporter-"Do other teams joke with ya’ll like how many guys do you have on the bench?"

Said Thomas-"A lot of Chattanooga teams. A lot of Chattanooga teams do that. They’re like that’s the only reason ya’ll beat us and all that stuff. It’s because you have a marching band on the bench."

Reporter-"Do people joke with you that you have more guys than Ralph Potter and the football team?"

Said John Shulman-"(MBA coach) Kevin Anglin at the start of the game said did you dress the student body tonight? I told him I got a bonus for every player over 14 that we dress."

    But the number that matters most is wins, and McCallie is 16-2.

Said John Shulman-"We’re 16-2 right now, and everybody feels like they are apart of being 16-2. Not just the five guys who are playing all the time."