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The Chambers Academy Rebels released their 2022-2023 basketball schedule for both the boys and girls teams.

The boys’ team likely won’t start until December due to the football team making the playoffs this season.

The schedule starts out with a game against LaGrange Academy on Nov. 8.

The Rebels will then play their first tournament at Evangel from Nov. 10 until the twelfth.

Chambers Academy will end November with a rivalry game against Springwood on the 29th.

The Rebels will play eight games in December, and the month will end with a tournament against Georgia teams two days after Christmas.

January features 11 games, and the regular season will end on the 30th with a road game against Springwood.

Jeff Hines will be coaching the girls’ team, and Athletic Director Jason Allen will coach the boys’ team.

Allen is excited about his team despite losing four starters from last season.

“We return our leading scorer,” Allen said.

“We were a senior heavy team. We lost some good players, including our leading rebounder. We’re returning some guys who played a lot of minutes. We’re returning Levi Waldrop, who played a good bit for us over the years. We return Brayden Riley. It’s going to be a work in progress. We’ll figure out who we are early. We’ll return our best player.”

Allen will have to figure out how to develop his younger players after losing several seniors.

“We have some good ninth graders and sophomores who have been in our program for awhile,” Allen said.

“They’ll have to step up for us to get back to the level we finished last year. Last year’s team was a work in progress as well. We really started playing well later in the year. We were able to make a great run in the playoffs and make the state championship.”

Allen mentioned that even though they don’t normally play LaGrange Academy to start the season, only the girls will play that game.

“Most of our basketball players play football,” Allen said.

“If we make the state championship, we won’t play a boys’ game until December. It’ll be just a wait and see kind of thing. Basketball season isn’t long enough. You’re trying to throw a season in two months. You’re having to contend with Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Years’. It’s not fair the way you have to play games. When you get into schedule making, you have to go with what you can do. There are a lot of moving parts, and it can become frustrating.”

Allen feels like the rivalry with Springwood has died down a bit due to the football and baseball teams not playing each other, but he’s turned his attention to Lee-Scott Academy, who challenges the Rebels in football and basketball each year.

“Lee-Scott is a really good basketball school, but they’re triple-A,” Allen said.

“Their game won’t count against us for the playoffs, but Lee-Scott and Glenwood are the two biggest schools in our association. You start with them and then move on from there. I don’t think our kids see it that way. Coach Sampson at Springwood has done a great job. They’re one of our biggest rivals geographically, but maybe it’s lost a little bit of its allure.”

Allen didn’t want to schedule a tournament two days after Christmas, but they had to fit the games in.

“We feel like that’s too long of a break for our kids not to play,” Allen said.

“We’ll play a school out of Georgia, but that has yet to be determined. We try to match it up where an Alabama school plays a Georgia school each game. It’ll be a round robin type tournament. Typically, we’ve had our own tournament, but we had difficulty getting teams. You really want to be playing your best basketball at the start of January to enter region play.”

Allen isn’t concerned about the large January slate.

“I like playing,” Allen said.

“Our kids will improve more by playing than practicing. We play a lot of good teams. It’s all about how you play in the playoffs. I found that out in football this year. If you play good people, it’ll make you better.”

The Rebels will play all the way until February when they hope to play in the elite eight on Feb. 2.