Losing nearly your entire starting lineup to graduation and getting bumped up a division doesn't sound like the recipe for success for a program aiming to get back to the state tournament for a third straight year.
The West Salem boys' basketball team? They took on the turnover and changes in stride and barely missed a beat.
The Panthers (25-3) find themselves back in a familiar position as they prepare for yet another March trip to Madison. After finishing as the Division 3 state runner-up the previous two seasons, this time around West Salem will compete as part of the Division 2 field at the 2024 WIAA State Boys Basketball Tournament, being held from Thursday, March 14 to Saturday, March 16 at the Kohl Center.
On last year's team, West Salem had four seniors — Carson Koepnick, Peter Lattos, Brett McConkey and Brennan Kennedy — in its regular starting rotation. Koepnick and Lattos were each two-time All-Coulee Conference first-team honorees, McConkey was twice named to the all-conference second team and Kennedy was an All-Coulee honorable mention last winter.
That's a lot of important pieces to replace. One would've been forgiven for thinking that much turnover — combined with the move to Division 2 — would've caused a step back for the Panthers in 2023-24. But inside that locker room, there was never any lack of confidence that they had the right guys waiting in the wings to keep this golden era for the program humming right along.
"Probably from an outside view, I don't think people understood how much talent we had coming back just because we had that really good group of kids ahead of them," said West Salem head coach Mark Wagner. "Within our locker room, within our team, we knew we had a lot of talent and that we could go out there and compete with anyone in our sectional. I don't think (the success) was a big surprise to us. It might have been to other people, but I don't think it was to us."
Senior guard Tamarrein Henderson — who played at Sparta as a freshman before transferring to West Salem and is committed to play college basketball at Division II University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota — was the team's lone returning regular starter from last season, where he was named to the all-conference second team.
Despite being a returning starter who had played in all four of West Salem's state tournament games the previous two years, this season was still an adjustment for Henderson as he took on a new role and greater responsibilities.
Henderson thrived in this increased role, serving as the Panthers leading scorer (19.5 ppg) and rebounder (6.4 rpg) along with dishing out 3.6 assists per game and accruing 28 total blocks. His efforts garnered him All-Coulee first-team honors.
"Tamarrein Henderson, even though he was our one lone returning starter, I think he's just made a huge jump this year as far as he went from maybe our third playmaker to our number one playmaker," Wagner said. "So, the ball's in his hands a lot more and he was able to do a lot more things. I think he's done a great job of scoring the basketball and getting his teammates involved as well. Even though he was a starter, his role changed significantly this year and I thought he did a great job in the new role of kind of being the man."
The other West Salem all-conference honorees for this season were junior guard Kyle Hehli (first team) and senior guard Joe Sullivan (second team), who each made the jump from reserves to starters this winter.
Both Hehli and Sullivan played major minutes in the state championship game a year ago, with Hehli even starting some playoff games at point guard due to an injury to Kennedy.
Junior forward Carter Pontius is the Panthers' other staple in the starting lineup, with the trio of junior guard Nathan Karr, senior center Hutson Hendrickson and sophomore Nathan Dillaber all getting starts at one time or another and rounding out the team's main rotation. Four of Dillaber's five starts have come during the postseason.
West Salem had little issue dealing with the roster turnover and dealt ably with the bump up a division as well. "Good basketball doesn't know divisions," as Wagner put it.
To maintain their level of success, the Panthers needed to adjust their approach following the loss of the 6-foot-8 Lattos and the 6-foot-4 McConkey to graduation.
This group is relatively undersized, as the team starts three guards under 6-feet tall and sometimes deploys lineups where the tallest guy on the floor is 6-foot-3 or 6-foot-4. They've combated this by relying more heavily on 3-point shots and pushing the tempo to try and score more often in transition.
The results have obviously been a rousing success, but now comes the challenge of trying to keep the ball rolling at state. West Salem is the No. 3 seed and draws a formidable foe in the form of No. 2 seed Pewaukee (24-4), the three-time defending Division 2 state champions.
The Pirates are led by senior guard Nick Jankowski, who is averaging 31.4 points per game and will play Division I college basketball for Fred Hoiberg and the Nebraska Cornhuskers starting next year.
No. 1 seed Wisconsin Lutheran (28-0) and No. 4 seed Nicolet (24-4) kick things off in Division 2 with the first semifinal on Friday, March 15 at 1:35 p.m. The West Salem-Pewaukee game follows approximately 15 minutes following the conclusion of Wisconsin Lutheran-Nicolet.
The two semifinal winners square off in the Division 2 state championship game on Saturday at 6:35 p.m.
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