Moeller Basketball 2025-26 Preview
During the 2024 season there was a lack of senior leadership on the Moeller basketball roster, and this key issue led the team to their dramatic exit in the first round of the playoffs. The strongest part of last year was how Alex Kazanecki was able to score at will on anyone he faced. But this one star was not enough to help the team, at Moeller they struggled to score in key moments, such as putting up ten points in the first half at league rivals: St. Xavier. A big reason for scoring so little was that players would pass up open shots to try and move the ball and lull the other team to sleep. All in all, due to the lack of senior leadership, and offensive production Moeller’s season came to an abrupt ending.
This year Moeller Basketball team is going to be led by a young front court, with only a few returning seniors. The standout seniors this year consist of: Danny Kelly, Karson Lang, and Cass Grierson. Last year those few seniors did not produce much on the court due to the massive senior class, but they are all looking to break out for their senior season. Since there are only 4 seniors, the team is relying on younger guys to produce. Freshman Jayden Davis is known as one of the top players in the 2029 class. Sophomore Bubba Donald excelled in his time on JV last year as a freshman and has shown promise throughout the offseason. Junior Riley McQueen has been waiting for his opportunity to be on varsity, and this is the year for him to break out.
A key game for Moeller this season will be their GCL league games versus St. Xavier. This game is going to be a key game because usually the winner of this game determines the rest of the season. This is because the winner of this game usually determines who runs the city and who will win the region when playoff time comes.
We went and interviewed Coach Demarco Johnson about how he thinks the season will go. We said, “What are your thoughts on this upcoming season?” and he said that he thinks it will be an “exciting” team to watch. It is important to recognize that he used the word exciting because being a young team means that there will be a lot of highs and lows. Young guys are going to make mistakes, but I believe they will play looser than teams in recent history. We also had the privilege of interviewing Moeller senior Daniel Kelly. When asked, “What are your thoughts on this year’s team?” he answered “We are going to be very young which can be scary. But also promising because the guys are going to go out there and just play ball.” He also mentioned that this team is going to be a more fast paced, athletic team that we were used to seeing during the time of Jaxson Hayes and Evan Mahaffey.
All in all, there seems to be more optimism in this year’s team than that of recent history. The lack of Senior leadership and offensive production caused an early ending to last year, and this year’s seniors look to turn the tide on last year’s performance and bring the GCL title back to Moeller.