The Aberdeen Roncalli boys’ basketball team will look to its defense to help ignite the offense this year.

The Cavaliers, under first-year head coach Dan Gallagher, lost a good share of their point production to graduation and are excited to see who will step up this season.

“It’s exciting just because last year you knew where scoring was coming from, this year it’s going to be a little bit different,” Gallagher said. “We’re playing with guys who could get 15 to 20 (points) one game and then might score four and still be just as productive.”

Roncalli returns two starters from a year ago, Zee Mounga and Maddox May. Both are coming off solid fall campaigns, Mounga in soccer and May in football.

They will be joined by Jayden Munroe to give the Cavaliers an athletic base to start from.

“That’s what we’re really basing everything we’re doing off of. We’re built on athletes,” Gallagher said. “We’ve got Zee, we’ve got Maddox. Maddox is just a terrific football player. Jayden is a guy who can jump out of the gym without even knowing he could jump out of the gym. Zee might be one of the quickest guys in the state.”

Other players expected to make major contributions this season include last year’s sixth man Keegan Stewart, and point guard Maddox Miller, who according to Gallagher has “a knack of knowing what to do with the basketball.”

Look for the Cavaliers to put their athleticism to work, especially on defense where they will try to create tempo and turnovers to help fuel the offense.

“We’re going to pressure teams in the backcourt. We’re going to pressure teams in the half court,” Gallagher said. “We’re going to do a little bit of everything defensively and we’re hoping that turns into some up-tempo offense for us.”

Gallagher served as an assistant for the Cavaliers in the past. He has already found out that his role will be much different as a head coach this season.

“It’s a transfer of 18 inches on the bench, but at the same time you’re in charge of the X’s and O’s now,” Gallagher said. “You’re setting the game plans, you’re setting the scout stuff, you’re setting up the practice plans. It’s definitely an adjustment, but I’ve got a lot of guys that really helped out.”

The Cavaliers, who open their season Friday at Deuel, have a variety of goals for the upcoming year, most of them in-game goals. Gallagher believes that accomplishing the small goals along the way will lead to the opportunity to fulfill the big goal at the end of the season.

“We definitely talk about goals. We’re not talking goals as far as wins or losses come a certain point,” Gallagher said. “What we’re looking at is how many points per game are we holding them to, how many offensive rebounds are we giving up, stuff like that. Kind of those little details that will eventually lead into the wins and losses that we’re ultimately looking for come the end of March.”

While there may be a few questions to be answered as the season gets underway, one thing is certain about Roncalli basketball this year: the Cavaliers plan on being viewed as a threat and are not going to concede anything.

It will start with athleticism and include energy and effort.

“We want people to fear playing us. We know there’s going to be days where we can’t shoot the ball, necessarily, we saw a couple of those last year. There’s days where the ball just doesn’t go in the hoop,” Gallagher said. “What we’re looking for this year is just relentless toughness, effort on the defensive end, and making teams just have to work for every single opportunity that they get.”