The last time we saw Chenango County's most successful basketball team, it was walking off the floor, three-point overtime losers in the state quarterfinals to Westhill.
It may well have been a final-eight game, but to the eye – and Westhill's subsequent results – the Norwich-Westhill game was played at a state championship-game level.
"We would have liked to have won that game, and based on what Westhill did after that, we think we would have been pretty successful (if we had won)," said Norwich fourth-year head coach Tom Collier.
Westhill beat Norwich for the second straight year, and blew teams off the court winning the Class B and Federation titles in a spotless 27-0 season.
"The kids coming back from last year’s team, they're all focused getting back to playing Westhill," Collier said. "Westhill has pretty much everyone back, so you have to assume they will be back."
As for Norwich's return, Collier was quick to point out that his team has a long road to travel, and it must find away to replace the nearly irreplaceable in first team all-state guard Michael Sutton, and veteran senior starters Storm Cook and Matt Burke.
Cook was one of the section's best center's by season's end and Burke was a fireplug of a hustler. But Sutton, now a walk-on freshman guard on Syracuse University's men's team, provided the type of presence that "made everyone around him better," Collier said.
"What people don't recognize in Michael Sutton is that he had an extreme mental toughness, and he brought that to the other kids on the team," Collier said. "Losing a kid like him, it's been eye-opening."
Collier is calling his fourth year at the helm "LAS," an acronym for Life after Sutton. Sutton's three seasons coincided with Collier's first three years as head coach, and Norwich accumulated a nifty 53-12 record winning a sectional title each season.
Sutton, Cook, and Mike D'Abbraccio played on all three championship teams, the first Norwich team to win three straight Section IV titles. When you have those lofty accomplishments, lofty goals will naturally follow. Conversely, teams that see Norwich's success will use that as motivation when they play the Purple Tornado.
"We know we have a target on our back," Collier said. "We lost a couple of games in the summer, and the way the players on those teams reacted after the game, you would have thought they won the Super Bowl. We expect every team we play (in our league) this year to give us their best."
Before entering league competition, Norwich will dip its toes into highly competitive waters when it travels to Queens this weekend for the Brother Arnold Tournament. The 30-year-old tournament includes four private and four public schools, and Norwich is the lone team in the field from outside the New York City area.
Looking at the schedule, Collier said that his expectation is to win every game, but he is also realistic knowing that that expectation will be put to the test. Two weeks after the NYC trip, Norwich plays in the top regional division in the Stop DWI Tournament in Binghamton.
It's a brutal opening month for Norwich before it gets into the meat of its STAC league schedule.
"I wouldn't be surprised if we're a .500 team on January first, or even 2-4, 1-5," Collier said. "This weekend's trip is to really expand our players' horizons, not just on the basketball court, but off of it. We're putting the ultimate challenge in front of our players going against schools recruiting from six million people, whereas we're from a town of 8,000. We're going to try to be as competitive as we can, and let the chips fall where they may."
Despite the losses to graduation, Norwich is far from devoid of talent. In fact, it has six players back from last year's club that saw significant minutes as either a starter or key reserve. Michael Oralls and Zan Stewart, dubbed "Fire and Ice" respectively, are third-year players on the varsity, who combined to average 21 points per game on a 2013-2014 club that had balanced scoring throughout the lineup.
Back from last season as well are guards Carlos Ithier and Chris Trevisani, and forwards Colin Stewart and Jamison Luke.
Those returning players are complemented by six junior varsity promotees – Jake Walsh, Matt Parrella, Cameron Edwards, Tre Bonham, Jordan Vinal, and Chris Jeffrey – and all six of those players saw starting minutes on the junior varsity level at one time or another.
Edwards, who was off to a promising start in the preseason, will not make an appearance until late January due to injury, so that leaves Collier with 11 players with which to work.
"This is the first time in my coaching career that every varsity player was a starter on the junior varsity," Collier said. "We feel that every player can contribute."
Contribute? Yes. Winning games at the same pace as the previous three years may take some time.
"We set up a challenging schedule so that we can be the best that we can be," Collier said. "And we hope to be one of those teams still standing in March."