Weird.

That’s how Colin Burke described his Manchester West boys basketball team’s season. From their habit of starting games slowly to the approaches they took to remedy their problems, the Blue Knights experienced a lot of new things this season, few of which were good.

At 2-16, West finished last in Class L and missed the playoffs for the first time in Burke’s fiveyear tenure as varsity coach.

Bright spots included wins over Dover and Merrimack, two playoff teams, but as West tried everything to turn its season around – which included instituting a zone defense for the first time and recalling a freshman point guard to varsity – it seemed no matter what it did, the team was destined for a forgettable season.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” said Burke, who returned just one of his top eight players from last season, senior guard Greg Mailhot. “It was a bounce here, a bounce there. It was one of those seasons where you have to make your own breaks, your own luck, and pretty much the only luck we had was bad luck. It was a weird year.”

But, Burke pointed out, West’s problems didn’t stem from a lack of effort. Though the losses piled up, the Blue Knights played perhaps their best basketball late in the season against some of the league’s toughest teams.

With its two wins coming in the span of four games, West erased a 17-point deficit before narrowly falling, 62-60, to firstplace Salem on Feb. 13. Two weeks later, it played Bishop Guertin, another top-six team, close in 67-56 road loss.

His players often tired late in the games, Burke said, after expending all of their energy simply erasing an early deficit. That would often lead to a close finish, a few plays proving the difference, and West going home with another loss.

The strangest part, though, may have been how they didn’t earn more victories.

“They’ve got a lot of hustle, and they had a lot of tough breaks,” said Salem coach E.J. Perry. “I scouted them a couple times. They played tough at Concord and they were up in the fourth quarter, and they sort of got snake-bit (in a 49-40 loss). We were up 17 against them after being up 11-0, and they just clawed back, played hard. That’s what they do.”

West is most likely due for another rebuilding season next year, Burke said, as it loses seven seniors, six of whom saw lots of minutes. But it will also have the benefit of youth.

Bedford natives Ben Sherr and Garrett Lofstrom, both juniors, will help classmate Timothy Daley lead a group that includes freshman point guard Richard Valentin, who saw time with the varsity team; sophomore Besfort Syla; and Greg Asselin, another promising sophomore who played mostly junior varsity.

They’ll be counted on to replace seniors Mailhot, David Armenti, Nicholas Travelyn, Mark O’Brien, Lowell Zangri, William Moher and Nicholas Aube.

“It should be an improvement over this year, hopefully,” Burke said. “It can’t get any worse, I don’t think.”