Under new leadership, young Belle Vernon girls basketball team hungry to get on the court

By: Antonio Rossetti
Monday, November 11, 2024 | 4:36 PM

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Belle Vernon made the WPIAL girls basketball playoffs last season but lost to Knoch in the first round.

With a young group of players back, first-year coach Cornelious Nesbit is prepared to see what this year’s team can do.

“I’m just getting the girls to understand my culture, my standards and my expectations,” said Nesbit, who has 17 years of coaching experience, including stints at Gateway and Shaler. “Some of the things that we’re going to do this year are trying to just get them comfortable with their new roles. Obviously, they graduated three starters, so now a bunch of kids who got new roles and are in a new system.

“I’m just getting familiar with them, getting to just know them as people and not just as players.”

Kenzi Seliga, Belle Vernon’s leading scorer at 9 points per game, graduated, along with starters Nina Francia and Carolina Lee.

Nesbit has faith in those returning, including Saylor Lee, who averaged 6.3 points.

“I think she can really take that next jump, per se, from her freshman year to her sophomore year,” Nesbit said. “She can be very versatile. She can play three different positions for us. We just have to figure out which is the best position for her and also figure out some combinations on the floor for her, where we could move her around.”

Nesbit also said freshman Aubrey Brown is making her presence felt, and he is excited to see her grow as a player over the next four years.

“I think she has an opportunity to be really special,” Nesbit said. “I think we have to be patient with her to understand that she is a freshman and not to heap so much of the expectation and so much of the pressure on her, but she has an opportunity to be special.”

Lee believes filling in for the three starters who graduated will be challenging, but she said Brown will be one of those players stepping up.

“It’s difficult to fill the team because, obviously, they played there for a long time,” Lee said. “It’s hard to fill any spots, but I do think we could do it. I mean, we have Aubrey Brown, which she’s probably gonna be a very big asset. She’s like 6-foot tall, and she’s a freshman. She knows what she’s doing on the court.”

Nesbit and Lee have confidence in Abby Russell at the point guard position. Lee added that Payton Walsh and Emerson LaCarte put in work during the offseason.

Victoria Selembo returns as the team’s lone senior.

Mia Roebuck, Chess Mertz and Arden Minniti return and are young players from whom Nesbit expects a lot.

Although experience is crucial in high school basketball, Nesbit knows there are benefits in having a young team.

“When you have a bunch of young players, you don’t have a bunch of bad habits because they haven’t been doing it long enough to develop a ton of bad habits,” Nesbit said. “When you have a young team, it gives me, as a new coach, an opportunity to grow with them.

“Sometimes, when you’re a new coach and you got an older team, I think they’re a little bit more resistant to change when they’re older. When you have a younger team, I think they’re more open to change.”

Nesbit has been impressed with what he’s seen so far from the players.

“They’re on the floor stretching before open gyms 15 minutes beforehand,” Nesbit said. “Right off the bat, we talked about some of the standards in the program. They’re really receptive to feedback that we’re working individually with them. They like to ask questions on why we do things, why we’re teaching it this way, so it’s been a really smooth transition.”

Lee said a strong suit of theirs is their team chemistry.

“I think that we all know each other really well because we’ve all played with each other a long time,” Lee said. “We’ve all played with each other since we started basketball, so we really know each other.”

Lee added her favorite memories are what they do off the court such as a secret Santa activity they did last year. Nesbit likes seeing how close the players are with each other.

“It’s been fun to just sometimes watch them joke around with each other,” Nesbit said. “You get to see the friendships and the bond. This group is really close. I think that’s the biggest thing that I’ve learned about them, is I think they are going to be the type of kids that are rooting for each other’s success and not just worried about their success.”

He added that the team has bought in to what he is teaching, and the player are accepting of their roles.

“If you just left the two stars out there to act and didn’t have all those other roles, how interesting would the movie be? It would probably be boring,” Nesbit said. “Getting them to understand that everybody’s role is important, and everybody’s role can change game to game, week to week, so I want them not to settle for just this role, but also to try to increase your role.”

Lee has enjoyed having Nesbit thus far and is excited for the season.

“He’s a really good guy,” Lee said. “He’s already taught us a lot skill-wise and mentally-wise. He wants us to stay on our game and he wants us to be able to do everything else. He really helps us in the offseason with other sports other than basketball too.”

As for on the court, Nesbit said he loves the toughness and size of the team.

“There’s a possibility that we can have, at times, maybe two 6-footers and somebody about 5-10 on the floor,” Nesbit said. “The good part is we are also athletic. They’re not just tall kids. They’re actually kids who could move, run, jump, so there are athletes out there. Our guards aren’t too small either.”

Lee said their combination of size and athleticism can lead to a successful season.

“It’s very important to have a bigger team that’s athletic,” Lee said. “If you’re a big girl that can do moves that are more than just around the hoop, if you play on a smaller girl, it’s going to be hard to keep up. We definitely have bigger girls that can still keep up with guards.”

Nesbit wants the players to take the season day-by-day.

“If we can get better every day, just 1% better every day than before we walked in the gym, by the time mid January comes around, we could be a really successful, a really good basketball team,” Nesbit said.

Belle Vernon girls at a glance

Coach: Cornelious Nesbit

Last year’s record: 10-13 (6-6 Section 3-4A)

Returning starters: Saylor Lee (so., G/F), Victoria Selembo (sr., F)

Top newcomers: Aubrey Brown (fr., F), Abby Russell (so., PG), Payton Walsh (so., G), Emerson LaCarte (jr., G), Mia Roebuck (jr., G), Chessa Mertz (so., G/F), Arden Minniti (jr., G)

Tags: Belle Vernon