By Joanna Chadwick

I haven’t been able to contact anyone within the South High administration over the past few weeks, but I tracked down the name of the new boys basketball coach — Kendall Hope.

Hope replaces Chris Brown, who was hired after the season when Demarcco Owens was let go. Brown said he was let go due to some players not having physicals during the summer workout session.

South has had so much turnover with its boys program. Chris Davis, now the Maize High coach, was the Titans coach from 1998-99 until 2005-06. Then Deon Allen for two years, Ty White for a year, Steve Lilly for a year, Demarcco Owens for two, Chris Brown for several months, and now Kendall Hope. South has won 13 games since its last winning season (2007-08 under Allen) when it was 15-7.

“You have to try to get some consistency from freshmen right on up, with everyone doing the same things,” Hope said. “It’s establishing some trust…. There’s no doubt it’s a challenge. We’ll keep things very simple, focus on fundamentals. Team basketball, we need to instill that.”