One improvement that the Knoxville Girls Basketball Squad is looking to get next season, is to win more non-conference games. Of the 11 games the Panthers won, ten of them were in the South Central Conference. Which was good as the Panthers finished in 3rd place. But Knoxville only had a single non-conference contest and that was the 1st round of the class 4A regionals against Perry. After coming up just 12 points short to eventual state tournament team Dallas Center-Grimes in the regional semi-final, Coach Matt Ritchhart tells KNIA/KRLS Sports that they should used as a springboard to be more competitive in non-conference games and win several of them next season.

Ritchhart: “There shouldn’t be a reason why we shouldn’t be competitive with team on our schedule. That DCG game showed that we can. We should be competitive with those games, and turn those loses into a win.”

Knoxville finished 11-11 this season and will bring back potentially three of the five starters from this season’s squad.