The Overlake School’s Athletic Director and boys’ basketball coach, John Wiley, will be the first to admit that he doesn’t have the most intimidating roster in the league.

But what his team may lack in height, they more than make up for with their quickness, work ethic and pure scrappiness.

“The team this year is pretty exciting,” Wiley said. “We’re excited about the way we started and we’ve got kids that are fast, and hard workers. If we maintain that, I think we’ll have a really good year.”

THREE AMIGOS

Having lost Emerald City League all-league forward and leading scorer Danny Poplawski (20 points per game) from last season, Wiley needed to find some veteran leadership on his club, and he found just that in the team’s three returning seniors in Hakan Yagiz, John Stolarczuk and Trent Halverson. “Hakan Yagiz is very fast, and a tireless worker who has become quite a scorer,” Wiley said of his senior guard. “John Stolarczuk is just a banger, one of those kids who will be able to lead by example and also has a nice jump shot.”

Flanked as a wing is Trent Halvorson, who has overcome numerous injuries as well as the death of his mother soon after the end of the last basketball season. The 6-foot senior is still battling lingering effects from a torn ACL last year and hopes to be back to 100 percent as the season goes on.

“I think we’d all agree Trent is our inspirational guy,” Wiley said. “We’re really happy about where he is, but he’s not yet back to where he was last year. He’s leading us with his experience and is already making an impact.”

The varsity team has seven newcomers this season who will look to learn from those upperclassmen and adapt into their roles on a young club. In addition, the Owls return Dean Poplawski, a guard who got to watch his older brother tear up the Emerald City League last year. Dean had a huge game against Darrington last weekend, scoring a career-high 20.

“Danny (Poplawski) was a great story, and I think the best part was that he’s got two little brothers (Dean, a sophomore, and Matthew, a freshman) that are on the team now, knowing that Danny turned into such a dominant player when he was initially a role-player,” Wiley explained. “He worked really hard, grew a little bit and developed into such a player.”

NEW BALANCE

Last year, there was no doubt as to who the Owls’ go-to guy was. This year, however, the Owls will be of a different mold, according to Wiley.

“We directed so many things at Danny and asked him to have such broad shoulders, when he wasn’t there, we really couldn’t succeed without him,” said Wiley of the team’s struggles after the elder Poplawski suffered a season-ending concussion late last season. “This year’s team is very different. I can’t point to one guy and say, ‘Without him, we’re in trouble.’ I don’t know who on a given night it’s going to be, but there’s going to be a kid that tries to put up Danny-type numbers.”

Wiley also noted that due to his team’s size, the Owls will have to focus on doing the intangibles to succeed in the long run. Those intangibles include setting up turnover and fast break opportunities, diving after loose balls, working the perimeter, and being fearless against opponents that may look imposing.

“There are some real big teams in our league physically, and for us to be the team we want to be, it’ll be more mental than anything,” Wiley explained. “Teams are literally going to try to knock us down. How quickly we come back and get off the floor, will determine what kind of team we are.”

But if the Owls’ preseason non-league schedule was any indication — they have outscored their opponents by a total of 185-99 in three blowout wins — the 2009-10 Overlake boys’ team has just what it takes to get the job done.

“I think realistically we’d like to go farther than we did last year–we’d like to get to the winner-to-state game,” Wiley said of his team’s goals. “That to me is a really great season. We’d like to put ourselves in position to play in a few big playoff games, but we’re very young. This is kind of like ‘money in the bank,’ but for those three seniors, the time is now.”