There was no question the talent was available for the Douglas boys' basketball team to arrive this season.
The real question was whether or not that talent was going to be enough to overcome the youth and inexperience the Tigers brought into the season.
"We knew that would come into play in tight games and playoff situations," Douglas coach Corey Thacker said. "But we also knew the kids worked extremely hard and that was going to give them a great opportunity to be successful this year."
With a roster of just five returning players, six combined years of varsity experience and just one returning starter, the potential for this being a basic rebuilding year was certainly there.
But for what the team lacked coming in, they got more than their fair share of during the season.
Douglas fought through eight games decided by five points or less - winning five of those - and got its first collective playoff experience as a group, falling 56-45 to eventual state qualifier McQueen.
In between, the Tigers made a name for themselves with impressive wins over the Lancers (62-48 in the Carson Valley Classic) and Southern 4A power Faith Lutheran. They rose to No. 1 in the Sierra Nevada Sports Media rankings at one point and were considered by many to be a legitimate contender for the regional title.
Along the way they strung together win streaks of five games and four games twice.
Not bad for a team that started out losing its first three games.
Douglas lost to Fairfield, Calif. (60-49), Oakland, Calif. (72-57) and Vallejo, Calif. (77-76) at the Wild West Shootout in Reno during the first week of the season.
Afterward, Thacker said, to sit in the team's locker room after those games, one would never have known the team had just lost.
"We learned so much in a short amount of time," he said. "That first weekend was a great eye-opener for these guys.
"The guys coming up from JV had been successful, but the varsity level is a whole different experience. That was their first real action at the varsity level and they needed some time to adjust."
It didn't take long. Douglas blew through its home tournament the next weekend, coupling a 30-point win over Lowry with the wins over McQueen and Faith Lutheran.
"We took what we learned that first weekend, came to our home tournament and played very, very well," Thacker said. "We got some confidence under our belt and that helped us going down to Vegas (for the Each 1 Teach 1 Amare Stoudemire
Invitational).
"The kids started to realize they could play with anybody. We had some losses down in Vegas, but we came away ready to go to work in league play."
Indeed, Douglas won 10 of its final 13 games of the regular season, clinching a home playoff berth after missing the playoffs completely in 2009.
Along the way, the Tigers seemed to buy into Thacker's system in which no one player is featured.
As a result, not a single player on the team came away averaging double figures in scoring. However, every player on the roster averaged at least 2 points per game, with six players averaging more than six points a game.
Thacker made a regular practice of getting all 12 players in the game by the end of the first half, sometimes in the first quarter, which helped fuel Douglas' full-court defensive attack.
"The kids really started to understand that if they put in the work, they were going to see the floor," Thacker said. "It helped the mental focus too, because they knew they had to be ready to go at any point. They went with the mindset that they had to step things up all the time.
"They worked hard as a group anyway, which really helped us out as coaches."
The added bonus is Douglas has the potential to return 10 battle-tested lettermen next season.
"That's the cool part, we return all of that experience," Thacker said. "We take that into the offseason with our spring and summer games and they'll still be improving.
That'll be fun. It'll be exciting to see those guys make even more strides as everyone gets a year older.
"We the athletes, the kids have the talent. But they're starting to be more basketball knowledgable. We'll try to take advantage of that. Hopefully the kids continue to buy into what we're building here."