In the closing seconds of the Lebanon boysโ€™ basketball game last week at McCaskey, Red Tornado guard DeAndre Jones, author of a 31-point performance, was casually dribbling upcourt.

A little too casually, actually.

In an instant the ball was gone, having been swiped by the Cedarsโ€™ Darayan Rodriguez. Rodriguez laid it in with seven seconds left, the final points in yet another Lebanon loss, this one by a 75-64 count.

In other words, the play meant nothing, and it meant everything.

โ€œWe donโ€™t give up,โ€ junior guard Manny Suarez said. โ€œWe play our hardest.โ€

A low bar, perhaps โ€“ especially for a proud program that has won nine Lancaster-Lebanon League championships, the most recent coming in 2021. The Cedarsโ€™ title total is the second-greatest all-time to McCaskeyโ€™s 14.

But the McCaskey loss, coupled with a setback three days later against Cedar Crest, leaves Lebanon 0-15 this season, after an 0-22 finish in 2022-23. The latter was its first year under coach Kris Uffner, a 1997 graduate of the school who played point guard on two league-championship teams.

These Cedars are forced to revel in the smallest of victories โ€“ in making the right play, in putting their best feet forward, regardless of circumstances โ€“ because the bigger ones have been elusive.

โ€œItโ€™s like our own version of The Process, almost,โ€ Uffner said, referring to the Philadelphia 76ersโ€™ recent rebuild.

Uffner, who previously coached for a decade in the Lebanon youth program, harbored no illusions when he took the varsity job, saying that the Cedars were in โ€œa down cycle.โ€

โ€œItโ€™s a different hand right now than whatโ€™s normally there,โ€ he said. โ€œWeโ€™ve just kind of got to work with what we have.โ€

No one on the team is taller than 6-foot-2, a formidable flaw when competing against Section Oneโ€™s size. So Uffner has focused on building up the youth program, on changing hearts and minds, and โ€“ again โ€“ the small things.

Against McCaskey, for example, the Cedars turned the ball over 10 times in falling behind 28-6 late in the first quarter, but kept plugging. They narrowed the gap to nine in the second period, but could get no closer.

โ€œWe have spurts like that,โ€ he said. โ€œWe just donโ€™t have enough firepower to come all the way back.โ€

Their average margin of defeat is 21, with four of the losses coming by single digits โ€“ the closest a 54-52 verdict against Palmyra on Dec. 29.

โ€œIt gets to us,โ€ Suarez admitted. โ€œI guess at the end of the day, it really gets to us, but we always try our best to stay positive, play with our heads up.โ€

That becomes more challenging, given what awaits him and his teammates each day in school.

โ€œItโ€™s obviously not the best, walking around knowing you havenโ€™t won a game,โ€ he said. โ€œBut at the end of the day, weโ€™re the ones that are playing. (Other students are) just watching us. They can say all they want, but at the end of the day, weโ€™re the ones on the court, so theyโ€™re not helping us.โ€

Their struggles stand in stark contrast to the rousing success of the girlsโ€™ team, which won Section One while reaching districts and states last year, and is enjoying another big season this winter. Uffner, who holds girlsโ€™ coach Jaime Walborn in high regard, encourages his players to support their counterparts, and believes there is value in them seeing the enthusiasm surrounding the girlsโ€™ program.

โ€œI think itโ€™s good, especially for my younger kids, to see a gym full of fans, and see what itโ€™s like in that environment,โ€ he said, โ€œand hopefully give them something to work toward.โ€

He knows well what thatโ€™s like, given that the ’95-96 team beat McCaskey for a league title, and the ’96-97 club defeated Hempfield in the L-L final. He remembers the packed gyms โ€“ gyms that were, in fact, jammed for the JV games, as fans wanted to assure themselves a seat for the varsity action. He remembers Lebanonโ€™s followers lining up well before the tipoff of road games, waiting for other schools to open their doors. He remembers all of it.

โ€œIt was a crazy time,โ€ he said.

Itโ€™s what made him want to coach at Lebanon, despite all the challenges. A big one, he believes, is posed by what he called โ€œhighlight cultureโ€ and โ€œinstant-gratification cultureโ€ โ€“ i.e., basketballโ€™s YouTube-ification.

โ€œYou get one highlight that can get 500,000 views, and thatโ€™s what kids see,โ€ he said. โ€œAnd they translate that to that kid being a good basketball player, or being a skilled basketball player. โ€ฆ When I watch our kids play โ€“ and itโ€™s almost at every level, and something weโ€™re trying to fix โ€“ it looks like itโ€™s all-star game movement.โ€

He is seeking purposeful movement โ€“ โ€œyou know, the fundamental things about basketball: cutting with purpose, screening, closing out on defense.โ€ He is seeking guys who instead of looking ahead to their next touch are seeking to play collectively and dig in on defense.

And for the last two seasons heโ€™s been seeking a victory. Just one.

โ€œI think for their morale it would definitely help,โ€ he said of his players. โ€œI mean, it would help mine, too, but I can kind of keep perspective. Iโ€™m aware of where weโ€™re at and where we need to get to. So it would help a lot โ€“ more for the kids.โ€

As Suarez said, โ€œThat would be great, just knowing the feeling to get that win. That would probably motivate us, and weโ€™d probably start winning more.โ€

The longest journey starts with a single step, right? Even, perhaps, a single steal.

โ€œThe kids that are in our program right now,โ€ Uffner said, โ€œtheyโ€™re going to be their own part of the Lebanon basketball story.โ€

And he can only hope it leads to some compelling chapters โ€“ that better things do in fact lie ahead. That the little things will add up, and eventually the Cedars will return to the heights they have often reached.

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Gordie Jones is a Lititz-based freelance sportswriter.

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