After posting a 20-10 season in his first year as the Madison College men’s basketball coach, Bill Kegler and his players were more than ready for the season to get underway.

“They are they are sick of practicing against each other every day,” Kegler said. “They are ready to play someone else and beat up on someone else.”

The team has split the first two games of the season, beating McHenry County College, 96-85, and losing to Highland Community College, 83-62.

Madison College has plenty of experience returning to the roster this year, led by second team all-conference and all-regional point guard Tyree Young. Young averaged 13 points and four assists a game.

He is joined by fellow sophomore guards Stavon Staples and Jezzriah Burton, who combined to score more than 17 points a game last year. Also back are forwards Deshawn Black and Jeffrey Marcum, both of whom played significant roles last season.

“I am looking forward to building on our success from last year,” Kegler said, indicating that his returning players will provide the needed experience to help integrate the new players into the program.

”We have guys who understand the game and how things operate and move, which is a good thing,” Kegler said.

Joining them will be a talented group of eight first-year players. They include Nathaniel Buss of Verona, Sean Suchomel of Sun Prairie, Alex Easterday of Elkhorn, Anthony Johnson of Beloit and Brandon Robinon from New Hope, Minn.

“It will be different in the manor of these players being more just out of high school, where we had some transfer players from last year,” said Kegler.

From his early season practices, Kegler wants to see his team grown more defensively and improve their on-court communication.

“We are not very defensively minded as far as trying to impose our will and stopping people, and communication. We need to get better at communicating at everything we do,” Kegler said.

Madison College’s next home game will be Nov. 18 at 3 p.m. against Columbus State Community College, a new addition to the WolfPack’s schedule.