ELWOOD — Terry Martin’s name may sound very familiar to those with a mind toward the history of basketball in the area. After all, he’s the same coach who won 216 games in 16 seasons at Madison-Grant High School.

Martin will finally be back on the sidelines this season as a varsity coach, and even in the Central Indiana Conference. His task this season, however, will be very different — guiding an extremely young Elwood squad, a team that lost virtually all of its varsity experience from an 8-15 campaign last year.

“Essentially, we have a JV team that’s going to play varsity basketball,” Martin said. “This year, I’m looking for improvement.”

Many may be prompted to say that Martin has his eyes on the future. With Elwood relying heavily on a core of sophomores — Joel Moser, Korbin Buster, Brandon Leisure and Kurtis Hussong — they’d be right.

“As they get older, they’ll get stronger,” Martin said. “I hope they’ll grow a little bit and become varsity players. It’s just going to take some time.”

With much of the focus on the underclassmen, senior Lance Smith will look to provide leadership that may not necessarily pay off in terms of wins and losses this season. As he explained, he’s looking to help build a foundation for success in the coming years.

“My main focus is to make them better, because Coach made me realize that coming back in a couple years when they’re a strong team, I can say I helped them reach their goals,” Smith said. “I’m optimistic about this team and the future. If we work hard, we can do some damage.”

Martin will look to Smith and Hussong to share duties running the offense, while Buster and Leisure will join that duo on the outside. Moser is slated to see plenty of time in the post, along with junior Derek Wells, who returns after taking a year off from basketball. Freshman Tyler Shannon should also see some varsity time in the backcourt, according to Martin.

“We’re going to have to work at every phase of the game,” Martin said. “We’ll look, first of all, to play at the speed and tempo of varsity basketball. We’re going to play a lot of young kids a lot of minutes.

“We’re just looking to try to get better. A lot of these kids will be around three or four years, so we have a lot of time to improve with this group.”