Washington split its pair of games in the Northside Christmas Tournament, beating Southside 61-57 on Dec. 19 to earn some momentum heading into the holiday layoff. The time off has allowed the boys to recharge their batteries and focus on what they need to improve on.

They won’t have the chance to ease into the second half of their season. Washington hits the road on Jan. 5 to take on 2-A Eastern Plains Conference foe Southwest Edgecombe. The Pam Pack returns home the following day to kick off a four-game home stand that includes a rematch with Southside and three straight league games.

One of coach Steven Flowers’ top priorities is finding out where the leadership will come from. It’s a bit surprising that the team is still looking for that considering the squad is made up entirely of upperclassmen.

“We need leadership and we need confidence. We have a lot of guys not playing with confidence,” he said. “Those are the two biggest things … These guys are young and there are a lot of first-year varsity players. Their confidence isn’t where it should be or could be. Once that comes, I think we’ll see some leadership emerge.”

Confidence is something that tends to come as a result of in-game success. It’s not something that’s easily developed on the practice court.

“Usually it’ll come in the game. They’ve got to get out and play,” Flowers said. “If they start to believe in themselves and then they see their teammates believe in them, then that confidence starts to grow.

When it comes to leadership, though, the time off has given Flowers the opportunity to meet with each player on an individual basis. Juniors Sharwan Staton and Tyshawn Cobb have been two players that Flowers has talked to about stepping up in a leadership capacity.

Leading isn’t a foreign concept to Staton. He has experience leading the offense on football as a quarterback for the Pam Pack. He has similar duties as point guard during basketball season.

“I was a leader in football,” Staton said. “It should be easier for me here doing the sport I love. Football is like my backup plan, but basketball is my main priority.”

With everything Staton experienced in this football season, as well as the close games Washington has already played through its nine basketball games, he knows what it will take to finish off and pull through.

“I’ve got to keep everybody focused. Even when we’re down, we’ve got to push on and come back,” Staton said. “It’s a matter of keeping my mind straight and keeping everybody else straight.”

In addition to those intangibles, the boys have been working on fundamentals during their break.

“The biggest thing we’re looking at is we’ve got to reduce turnovers,” Flowers said. “We had 19 turnovers the last game out. We’re not going to win games with 19 turnovers, so we’ve been working on fundamentals … We’re going to play aggressive defense and we’re going to get after it on the offensive glass.”

Flowers doesn’t plan to change anything about the defense other than turning up the aggression. He feels that players can get a little lazy playing zone defense. He’s going to stick with the man-to-man strategy and make sure the players get to the ball.