Fayette coach Jon Bishop said they key this year to finishing with a record above .500 will be playing together as a team. And with four seniors returning with a bevy of underclassmen, the Falcons seem to be heading in the right direction as the season is about to open.

Fayette lost five seniors to graduation a year ago, including top-scorer Dalton Collins and the team’s leading rebounder, Theo Owings. But Fayette returns four seniors, one of whom was on Fayette’s starting five a year ago, and another who started two years ago as a sophomore but sat out his junior season.

Collins paced the Falcons with 21.7 points per game a year ago. So far this year, he has averaged 12 points per game in four contests for Western Technical College in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

“You don’t see a double-digit returning scorer for us. You see one returner,” Bishop said. “You also see a guy who was All-Conference as a sophomore who didn’t play as a junior.”

Ben Wells is Fayette’s returning starter from the 2021-22 team that finished 8-16 overall. Wells banked a cool 8.3 points per game last year as a junior. And coming off a brutal football season as the Falcons’ starting quarterback, which left his right hand in a cast, he must now shift gears from plowing through tacklers, to scoring jump shots.

Wells suffered a fracture to his throwing hand near the end of the football season, but he was scheduled to have his cast removed a week prior to the team’s season opener in the Glasgow Tournament.

“Once Ben gets his cast off, I think he’s going to plug right in. He has that athletic ability. He won’t miss a beat,” said Bishop.

Alongside Wells in the starting lineup will undoubtedly be senior Chase Allen-Jackman, who forwent his junior basketball season a year ago, but who started at times as a freshman and as full time as a sophomore.

The 6’3 Jackman not only brings height to the Fayette starting-five, but some of the best athletic ability in the conference. 

“Technically, I look at him as a returning starter, because he had that experience,” Bishop said. “He played with us this summer and hasn’t missed a beat. I’m very excited about what he’s done. He’s probably going to be handling the ball quite a bit for us this year.”

Under the basket, 6’2 senior Malakai Graves will man the paint in Fayette’s 4-1 offense.

“Malakai is going to give us great minutes down low,” Bishop said.

Graves will occupy the space dominated last year by 6’6 seniors Theo Owings, who finished last season with nine double-doubles. Owings averaged 10 rebounds and 9.3 points per game for Fayette last season.

Fayette’s fourth senior, Mellow Hockaday, will find himself as the fourth starter this year. He saw action in 17 games last season.

“He has been extremely positive and extremely coachable, and has done very well for us defending and distributing the ball,” Bishop said.

Fayette’s final starter is undecided. Bishop said he may not know until the Falcons take the floor for the first game of the season against Slater in the historic Glasgow Tournament on Tuesday, November 29. 

“We’ve got a few guys who have played the last couple of years. We have a couple of sophomores, maybe even a freshman [who could start],” Bishop said. “I think Kevin De La Torre and Tristan Swanson, Kaleb Friebe, Micah Estes…out of those four guys we’ll probably figure out who our fifth will be. And Payton Oeth, a freshman, will be dressing out as varsity and give us some minutes.”

Fayette will likely sport a four-outside, one-inside style offense this season, which is not unlike other Falcon teams Bishop has coached in his five years here. “We’re going to be driving the basket quite a bit,” he said. “Really attack the basket and go inside-out. We’re going to be moving around.”

The keys, however, will be how well Fayette rebounds and plays defense, and how well the players control their emotions. Bishop said he and assistant coach Spencer Gerald have focused all pre-season on teaching his players to play with emotion and excitement, without allowing emotions to derail his players during bad moments.

“We want to play with emotion. We want to compete with emotion, but we don’t want to play emotional,” Bishop explained. “I think sometimes last year we struggled with that. We got to a point where we’d get frustrated with missed shots or missed assignments. 

“We’ve done this very well so far in practice: play with emotion; play excited; play with passion. But don’t get emotional. Don’t let something bad take you down.”

Defensively, the Falcons will mix up their strategies. Unlike many mid-Missouri teams that play up-tempo, full-court pressure schemes for four quarters, Fayette will mix man-to-man, half-court zone, and presses over the course of any given night. 

“Defense and rebounding is going to be key for this group,” said Bishop. “I really believe that this group will play better team defense than we have in a while. I’m one of those who will throw everything and the kitchen sink at a team.”

Fayette opens the season on Tuesday, November 29 against third-seeded Slater. The Falcons were seeded sixth in the eight-team bracket and will tipoff at 9 p.m. Bishop said he expects another tough, athletic Slater team that will play a lot of 3-2 half-court zone.

The Wildcats opened the season Friday with a win against Prairie Home 59-29. They finished 15-10 a year ago. Despite their proximity, the two teams haven’t played one another since 2019 when Slater defeated Fayette twice.

Fayette opens regular-season play at home against New Franklin on Tuesday, December 6. The first Lewis & Clark game of the season will be a home bout against Harrisburg on Tuesday, December 13.

“We’ve made some changes, offensively, that have put us in a slightly different position with the personnel we have,” Bishop said. “We’re excited about that. We’re running it pretty well. But, it really comes down to rebounding and defense. If we can’t box out, and we can’t close out, we’re going to struggle. If we can play with the emotion that I know we have, we’re going to have a lot of success, especially later in the season.

“I’m excited for the season.”