Howell girls basketball coach Tim Olszewski, in the tradition of coaches everywhere, comes off as almost deathly afraid of every opponent his team faces next, regardless of its record.
Take tonight’s opponent, for example.
‘You know, Plymouth might be the toughest 0-10 team in any league,” he said. “They’re young, but they’re so well-coached and disciplined, and they’re a team that could beat anybody.”
Tonight’s game will be broadcast on The Livingston Post at around 6:50 p.m. Click here for the link.
Part of this, of course, is coach-speak, but Olszewski saw first-hand when the Highlanders (13-4 overall, 7-3 KLAA West) escaped with a 31-28 win at Plymouth on Jan. 13.
So Olszewski has plenty of reason to be wary of the Wildcats (4-13, 0-10), who are winless at home but are 4-4 on the road, including a 39-33 win at Pinckney on Jan. 3.
“They have some freshmen on the varsity, but they’ve been close in a lot of games,” Olszewski said. “You can’t take them for granted, that’s for sure.”
Especially if, like Howell, you want to keep your division title hopes alive.
Howell is tied with Brighton for second place in the division, two games behind first-place Salem, whom the Highlanders play host to in the final game of the KLAA regular season.
Howell will need help to force a tie, but they also have to win out to do so.
“You don’t want a trap game right now,” Olszewski said. “The last thing you want to do is look at records and say, ‘Oh, that should be a gimme,’ because tomorrow night is not going to be a gimme. We were on the road last week and beat Canton and Brighton. It was great to get those victories and we just don’t want to relax.”
