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Valley High School’s boys basketball team spent last week traveling throughout Alabama playing 12 games at college camps.

“The kids have enjoyed themselves,” Head Coach Marshon Harper said. “We’re getting good feedback from the college coaches. They said they love to see them play. We’ve been having a good time for the team. Our fans have been following us to camp, and they’ve just been enjoying it.”

Harper thinks playing the larger schools in summer will help his team.

“We went to camp because we wanted to play some competition,” Harper said. “We ended up playing Coleman, who was the 6A state champion last year. We played Enterprise, who was the 7A state champion last year. We wanted to see some different styles of ball, and we had an unbelievable camp.”

The team also practices each week in June on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. The good news for Valley is it’s returning almost its entire team.

“We only had two seniors last year,” Harper said. “We have a group called the ‘Fab Five’ that were sophomores, so they’ll be juniors this year. We had six juniors who will be seniors this year. We’re returning an experienced team. We’re looking for big things.”

The Rams will return several key pieces, but there isn’t one player who really stands out.

“The best thing about the team is I can’t say there’s one guy who’s a leader,” Harper said. “Brandon Thomas was our leading scorer. Cam Dooley was another scorer. We’ve just got a lot of guys who contribute to the team.”

Harper also knows summer is the time to work on everything you can.

“We’re working on that skill,” Harper said. “We’re working on our outside shooting and getting bigger, faster and stronger. I considered us a young team last year, so we’re just trying to get them some experience.”

Harper is also the defensive coordinator for Valley’s football team, so there’s more focus on football right now.