Season Outlook: The 24-25 Rye Boys Varsity Basketball Team
Season Outlook is a new series for the 2024-25 academic year, where MyRye.com asks every varsity coach about the season ahead. Today, we learn about the Rye Boys Varsity Basketball Team with new Head Coach Tommy Proudian.
Eighteen wins and a trip to the Class A championship game in 2023-24 for the Rye Boys Varsity Basketball team create great expectations for the team this upcoming season. The Garnets are looking for their third consecutive league championship and second section crown in the 2020s, and Head Coach Tommy Proudian believes it is very possible for his team in 2024-25.
“We have nine key players returning from last year’s team that reached the section championship game, which I feel gives us a great opportunity to make a deep run in the playoffs again this winter,” Proudian told MyRye.com. “I am also very happy with a few new additions from last years 20-0 JV team.”
Proudian coached the undefeated JV team in 2023-24, and is set to take over for John Aguilar as the varsity head coach for this season.
One of the six losses for Rye last year came to the Byram Hills Bobcats in the Class A sectional final. Proudian suspects his team – with its great deal of returning talent – will be itching for revenge.
“I have not asked them yet, but I am sure there’s a good chance they’ll say Byram Hills because they were the team that beat us in the section championship game last season,” Proudian told MyRye.com. “Byram has also become sort of a rival for Rye in basketball the last 7 or 8 years because of the success both programs have had over the last decade… being in the same league [and] playing twice a season. The two schools also have great support from their student bodies – always well attended games with a lot of energy in the gym. They are a very well coached team, well prepared.”
The Bobcats are already 2-0 to start the 2024-25 season.
Four of the nine returners to this year’s squad are set to serve as co-captains: Jake Kessner, Andrew Wilmarth, Rocklan Boisseau, Patrick McGuire. Boisseau, now a senior, served as one of two captains last year, while the other three are first-time captains for the basketball team, but were captains of the football team this past fall.
“They are a great group of young men who work very hard and play well together,” Proudian told MyRye.com, speaking about what excites him for the year ahead. “A very unselfish team.”
Catch the Garnets in action in their season opener against the Nanuet Golden Knights on Friday, December 13. Tip-off at Nanuet High School is set for 5:00pm.
