1. Lancaster does not have enough talent in the first place (not in the HS and not in the district). Every school with 200+ boys in the entire building, especially in Central Ohio, should have at least eight kids per class that can make a difference in varsity play by the time that they graduate. Kids who push the bar higher and higher everyday in practice, and in turn can be counted on to do their job no matter the situation when their number is called. Lancaster, who has 225 boys per class, is lucky to get at least five of those sort of kids in a class and never has enough of those kids to make a 12 or 15 man varsity roster out of such! That lack of depth hurts, and it’s compounded by not having hardly any gifted athletes either.
2. ...some of the talent they do have either transfers out, or never attends LHS in the first place. Swindells and Conley instantly come to mind, here. And they leave, just like all the others that have before them and others that will after them because they know this mess of a program is not worth their skill, time, dedication and energy. More than happy to expound in this later if need be, but I think this is a pretty well understood point.
3. Lancaster does not develop players, at the high school level, into the talent necessary to compete in the OCC - let alone the OCC-Ohio. Arter and Pierce are the only exceptions in recent memory. Whitt also applies, but I think a lot of that was God-given and self-cultivated, especially given his height. Kitchen had an unbelievable ceiling as a freshman at FC, left to go to LHS because the thought was that program could do more for him in terms of development and post-secondary basketball prospects. Ended up being an average HS player when he (and his crew) should’ve been enough to keep them within reach of P Central, Gahanna and Newark, simply because Truex and that staff wasn’t doing anything to make them OCC-competitive.
4. Lancaster has, or at least until very recently, had an unbelievably horrid biddy program. This has been discussed for years.
5. The Lancaster administration, community and even the Lancaster press refuse to acknowledge what’s actually wrong with the program, instead blaming socioeconomics and their willing participation in the OCC-Ohio pretty self-explanatory, although in case it’s not clear: Rutgers football isn’t bad because it’s in the Big 10 East. Lancaster basketball, likewise, isn’t bad because they’re in the OCC-Ohio. It’s bad because the program is the Springfield Tire Fire and has been for almost ten years now. And everybody knows it but refuses to accept reality, instead casting blame on the fact that Lancaster isn’t a rich town and that they’re playing against great talent for 10 games out of the year. This obviously ends up discrediting LHS basketball and ultimately it deters some of the few glimmers of hope for Lancaster basketball from actually playing for the Gales.
Two reasons (easily fixable) that explain why they’re stuck where they’re at
1. Related to point #5 above, too many power players internally and externally need to do the program, its students, parents and community a favor: stop making lame, stale sorry piece of crud excuses and admit that they have an absolute tire fire situation. Cut the losses now before you start losing more of your only decently talented players & parents who are realizing this program is a complete waste of their time and energy and has been since they were in middle school.
2. They’re chicken about the big elephant in the room, and everybody knows it: they know they likely could lose a game against Fairfield Christian, Fisher, Berne and most definitely would lose to Bloom-Carroll and Fairfield Union. They know that all of their excuses as to why they aren’t better hang on the line for dear life if they were to play FC or FU. FC would probably be a 50-50 game, FU a sure loss. That’s why this Patriot Prep game is so stupid for LHS, because everyone knows by now that FC has tried to get Lancaster on the schedule for at least five years now and LHS either “no thanks” or no responds... but they’re more than happy to travel two hours to play D4 Caldwell, to play D3 Ross Southeastern, to play lowly West Jeff. 30 minutes to play in a shoebox against literally the second worst team in D4 Central district last year. Absolute chickens, and it’s horrible that both schools are robbed of that matchup. Goes to show what Lancaster only cares about: saving face.