The Knoxville Girls Basketball Program will be under a new coach this season. Matt Ritchhart will guide the Panthers this season. Ritchhart is the current girls soccer coach for the Panthers and was the boys interim coach for the final 13 games of the season last year compiling an 8-5 record. Ritchhart tells KNIA/KRLS Sports the philosophy likely will not change too much as he wants his players to be aggressive on defense and push the tempo, but also knows that if they need to slow it down, they can do that as well.

Ritchhart: “We need to have that fine line, where it’s clearly a case that we’re not going to score in transition, and when we’ve run our offense in the half court it’s look pretty good, plus it’s not that much different from what Jim used in the past. So I think we’re looking pretty good and we’ll see how we improve.”

The Panthers start off with a preseason game Thursday against Ottumwa in the annual Pride Scrimmage. Knoxville gets the season underway officially against PCM on Tuesday. Listen to Knoxville Basketball all season long on 95.3 KNIA with all home games on the KHS Activities You Tube Channel.