Corsicana — One thing Corsicana’s boys basketball braintrust found out the last two years playing in District 15-4A is that AAU basketball might be its toughest competition.

Opponents like Lancaster, Ennis and West Mesquite had their entire rosters playing a high level of summer ball. Corsicana didn’t.

Enter Terry Seth and John Lang who decided to do something about it.

For the second straight summer, they organized a Corsicana Summer League at the high school.

Tigers boys basketball coach Don Newton can’t participate — he can only observe — so they brought in Navarro assistant Eric Colbert to coach the older team while Lang headed up the younger group.

The Summer League had eight teams from around the area. Corsicana was able to fill two of them. Teams from Cayuga, Mabank, Mexia, Ennis and Mildred participated, plus the Higher Authority AAU team based in Corsicana that had several players from Kerens and Italy.

“We’re trying to get kids playing better and we’re getting more games for these guys to play,” said Seth, Corsicana’s YMCA director. “The more reps they get the better they’re getting. We have a bunch of younger kids playing against juniors and seniors.”

It has worked, said Colbert, who knows something about developing talent and winning. He has helped Johnny Estelle lead Navarro to the NJCAA National Basketball Championships in Hutchinson, Kan. in three of the last four seasons.

“It’s been tremendous,” Colbert said. “Defensively they’ve learned the game. They’re playing much harder than they did in the beginning. They’ve also taken much more pride and ownership in their team. In my opinion they’ll be much better than they were last year.”

Lang, owner of Casita Travel Trailers, said he got involved to help kids in Corsicana and because he has twin boys — Tim and David — who are sophomores in the Tigers’ basketball program.

They played in a spring league in Fairfield and then this summer in Corsicana.

“They’re getting way better,” Lang said. “I’ve seen a lot of improvement. A lot of them are working hard and they’re not giving up. I’m real impressed with what’s going on.”

Seth, whose son Sam is also a sophomore, gets to see things at the grass roots level at the YMCA, which has leagues for 5-year olds through the 8th graders. Last year there were more than 200 kids that played YMCA basketball.

The Mavericks winning the NBA title in 2011 and the run of the Oklahoma City Thunder this season with their popular young players such as Kevin Durant (who played for a season at Texas) have been a boost, Seth said.

“We’re still young,” Seth said. “The majority are sophomores and freshmen. We’re seeing more kids playing basketball. They’re up at the YMCA right now playing.”

The benefactor — eventually — will be Newton, who will start his third season as the Tigers coach. He’s in a new district — 16-4A — with a better chance of making the playoffs from a percentage standpoint.

Corsicana traded the Dallas area teams for John Tyler, Nacogdoches, Lindale, Whitehouse and Jacksonville. Four of the six will make the playoffs. That’s a 67 percent chance of making the postseason.

Playing against the best — and Lancaster is as good a 4A program as there is in the state — gave everyone another wakeup call.

“That’s the whole premise of starting this Corsicana Basketball Association,” Newton said. “The kids are playing spring and summer games and have Eric coaching them. They’ve been consistently showing up to practices and they’ve been at the gym all the time.

“They’ve played 50 games between the junior varsity and freshmen. We’ve learned how to win games.”

Colbert makes for a good outside source to get an honest opinion of the summer league impact. And he’s sees better days ahead for Newton and the Tigers.

Varsity returnees such as guard Dzifa Mallett and post Earnest Lewis have made major improvements, he said. Another player to look out for this season is point guard Ralph Watts, who could move to shooting guard.

“Dzifa is growing and the best athlete out there and he hates to lose,” Colbert said. “Then you bring in him learning the game. He’s grown leaps and bounds.

“Earnest is really playing well. Ralph had some great shooting games.”

Colbert, from California, said Texas is different because football is king. But that doesn’t mean you also can’t be competitive in basketball.

“We didn’t have that problem in California, waiting for football,” Colbert said. “We shared our kids and I understand how it is in Texas, especially after that great run in football.”

The Corsicana teams struggled to win games in the spring, Colbert said. But that changed in the summer league.

The Tigers picked up solid wins against Higher Authority and Cayuga, who are expected to have strong teams this year. Higher Authority had several players that helped Kerens make the state tournament.

“It’s hard to simulate what those kids are getting up there in Dallas playing AAU,” Colbert said. “So you have to provide an atmosphere where you’re learning the game and getting used to the speed of the game. It’s different up there in Dallas. We’re learning how to play fast and compete. I’ve been very impressed with how our guys have picked it up.”

Lang and Newton give Colbert major kudos for his work, especially teaching man-to-man fundamentals on defense.

“He’s helped a lot,” Lang said. “He gets to spend a lot of time with them during practice.”

And while Lang has a personal stake with his twin boys playing, he also wants to see the Tigers basketball program catch up to other successful Corsicana teams like football, baseball and soccer.

“The basketball program has been lagging behind,” Lang said. “We want to do whatever we can to help get things caught up.”