The Ida B. Wells’ Men’s Basketball team is starting off this new year determined to fend off its main rivals in the Portland Interscholastic League (PIL). After a rocky start, the team is hoping to assemble all its resources and make a redemption for the second half of the 2023-2024 season.

So far, the men’s varsity team has lost 9 out of 12 games, including to local rivals Franklin, Roosevelt, and Jefferson High School. They have won with strong leads against the Tigard Tigers, the Thurston Colts from Springfield, and the Irvington Vikings from California. 

Cam Hammer, a junior who plays varsity, remains optimistic about what lies ahead for the team. “We haven’t had the record we were hoping for but we still have half the year left. We’ve been getting better and working things out, so I’m not too worried about it. I think we’ll have a better second half of the year,” says Hammer.

Hammer pointed to a number of players being out, including sprained ankles and the team captain suffering from a fractured nose as one of the issues they have been affected by. Yet his positive outlook persists, citing a strong core junior group within the team. The basketball coach, Jonny Canalin, has made efforts to promote more discipline and harder training. 

“Coach Jonny has been a great coach, especially for me, my personal opinion on him is that he’s been the best basketball coach I’ve ever had in terms of seeing my potential. Freshman year I started on the freshman team and going into sophomore year I was starting on varsity when Jonny came here. I feel like he saw a different kind of potential,” says Hammer.

According to Hammer, the team supports one another well, they don’t have one player carrying the whole team. “We’re all figuring things out,” Hammer says. Among his honorable mentions for standout players was Jacey Canalin, who has, outside of his skill for the game, taken a leadership role in helping his teammates.

PIL league play may be a more familiar field for the IBW team. “We’re playing teams where we know a bunch of kids on the team,” says Hammer. 

The IBW basketball team has until early March to make their comeback and win games against rival Portland schools. While the winter so far has been a slouch, it’s not over until it’s over. “We’re honestly trying to finish this year as strong as possible,” says Hammer. “Whatever happened earlier in the year we can’t do much to change it. But we can still influence what happens to us the rest of the year.”