Hitting the hardwood over the past few weeks the Northwest College men’s basketball team has been preparing for the start of the winter season, which begins at the Casper College Tournament.

“It’s always hard to tell. It’s obviously very early, but we’ve had some scrimmages and I think we’ve made some progress,” coach Andy Ward said. “We experimented with some different lineups … I thought we got better from our first scrimmage to our last.”

Kicking off the season on Friday the Trappers will take on Air Force Prep at 5:30 p.m., a team that Ward knows will test Northwest.

“They’ll be very disciplined,” Ward said. “They’ll execute their offense. They typically have really good players — players that are going to move on to likely play for the Air Force Academy. They always bring a unique style that’s not easy to play against.”

The second contest of the weekend will be at 2 p.m. on Saturday against North Idaho College, a team that has recently shifted into the NJCAA Scenic West Athletic Conference after being part of the Northwest Athletic Conference.

The Cardinals are a familiar face for Northwest, as they are a team the Trappers have played each of the last two seasons but have been unable to win against.

“North Idaho is always tough,” Ward said. “They’ll have good size and athleticism, they’ll be well coached. I don’t know much about them [this year], but we’ll at least get to see them play Casper on Friday.”

Ward continues to hold high expectations for his players, preaching the same consistency in order to win this season.

“I talk to the guys all the time about us getting good shots, more good shots than they [the opponents] get, getting to the free throw line more than they do, getting more rebounds than they do, and taking care of the ball better than our opponents,” Ward said. “If we can win in those four areas, then we’ve got a good chance of winning the basketball game.”

Heading into this season the Trappers return six players who’ve had experience last year, while adding nine freshmen — four from Wyoming.

With those returning sophomores, Ward is expecting strong leadership, while the freshmen are beginning to adapt to the college lifestyle early in the year.

“I think they’ve [the sophomores have] done a good job. They’re obviously a bit further ahead than the freshmen in understanding the program, the things that I want, and they’ve done a good job,” Ward said. “Our freshmen have done a good job of adapting. It’s always interesting to watch the freshmen come in; the players are bigger, faster, stronger, the game’s faster, and they’ve got to make that adjustment. Sometimes it takes a little while, but I think they’re doing a good job that way.”

One thing the Trappers have this year that they did not have last year will be size.

“We definitely have more size,” Ward said. “We’ve had a number of injuries. We’re not 100% healthy and some of our guys have been out and missed quite a bit. I think our team size is quite a bit better. I think we have pretty good depth at every position, so hopefully that impacts winning.”

Northwest will be on the road at the Casper tournament followed by a tournament in Riverton before opening its home campaign against Miles Community College at Cabre Gym on Tuesday, Nov. 12.