The Georgiana School basketball team has already started preparations for next season.

The panthers hit the court last Tuesday to get things underway, said coach Kirk Norris.

“Teams that are successful are playing and practicing during the summer,” Norris said.

The Panthers will be loading up and heading out to Luverne this weekend for two days of scrimmaging.

“The state lets you have seven days in June and July that can be used as competition days,” Norris said. “It doesn’t matter how many games you play on these days, you just can’t schedule more than a week of games.”

Norris said his team would be heading there on Friday for four games, followed by four more games on Saturday.

“It helps them get used to playing together and working together as a team,” Norris said. We lost five seniors, three starters, form last year’s team so this will be a chance to see how the team is playing together and what needs to be worked on before the season.”

Early season practices, Norris said, focus on fundamentals while still working in some conditioning as much as possible.

“You aren’t so cramped for time so you have more freedom to break stuff down and work on things individually, which is harder to do during the season.”

The next weekend, Norris said they would be heading to Troy for what he views as one of the best basketball team camps in the state.

“We probably won’t see anyone there that we will play during the regular season, but its good experience,” Norris said.