Coach Ivan Raymond
Jeff Holt | The Easley Progress
EASLEY — At press time, Ivan Raymond was wearing two hats as an O-Line Coach in football for Easley and the varsity girls basketball coach for the Green Wave.
Coach Raymond took some time to reflect on his upcoming season of hoops. He led them to an 18-7 record last season and they return three starters (wing Karsyn Waldrop, point-guard Karson Bigham and wing Kimbel Leach) who all averaged close to 5 points a game last season.
“We have a tough schedule and our region is going to be solid,” said Coach Raymond. “We know there will be some battles ahead. In my heart of hearts, I think we’ll come out more on the winning side than the losing side.”
Raymond enters his fifth season at the helm and sixth overall season at Easley (one year as an assistant coach). His philosophy is an up-tempo type of game that results in easy buckets.
“We always try to run and preach conditioning,” said Raymond, “and get easy buckets. Defensively, we just believe if we can prevent fastbreak points and play in the halfcourt our defense is one of the best we believe. That’s what we’ve hung our hat on when scoring has been difficult. We just try to limit points on the defensive end and push as much as possible and get easy buckets.”
Early schedule for the Easley girls basketball team:
Wednesday, Nov. 8: at Southside (scrimmage)
Monday, Nov. 13: POWDERSVILLE (scrimmage at home)
Tuesday, Nov. 14: TRAVELERS REST (scrimmage at home)
Tuesday, Nov. 28: at Wren
Thursday, Nov. 30: at Fountain Inn
Friday, Dec. 1: at Daniel
Monday, Dec. 4: at Wade Hampton