The Minot Ryan Lions boys Basketball team hit the court for the first time this year with their first practice of the season. Head coach Scott Medalen returns for his fifth season with the Lions that have seen the team finish in the top 7 in state the last three years.

But this year the team won't have the luxury of a lot of returning experience with the loss of all 5 starters off of last year's team and with a lack of size will try to utilize their quickness.

Scott Medalen, Ryan boys basketball coach:Of the five returning letterman that we have back, none of those guys so action in half of the varsity games so we're really gonna be green. I think it's gonna be a lot of trial and error early part of the season and I just really think by the 5th, 6th game of the season a lot of the sophomores and juniors are gonna have to really step up their games and be ready to play every night and the rebuilding part is gonna have to go by the wayside. So we're excited about the group that we have but really just a lot of questions are gonna be answered here in the next month or so.

Ben Kramer, senior:We lost a lot as everybody knows but got good quality people coming up, our J.V. was pretty solid last year so we're trying to build a little depth right now. We got a lot of quick guards and we're just trying to build off of that and try and run a little pressure defense.

Levi Freidt, junior:We're just gonna have to be fast, we don't have size, so we're gonna be small. We're just gonna have to be really fast and create turnovers and try and score off of that.

Meanwhile the Lions expect to battle in another very competitive district and point to Berthold and Mohall as the front runners.

Medalen:I really think Berthold is very, very good. They return virtually everybody from their team last year, real strong team, they got a lot of guys that can score. I think another team to look at in the district is gonna be Mohall, returns a good chunk of their team last year and Des Lacs-Burlington, they're a team that's gonna be there all the time and I think right now those are the three stronger teams in the district.

The Lions open their season on December 13th at Rugby. watch the video | save this article / add to your favorites list