NATCHEZ — The Cathedral School basketball team is not a full wave just yet, instead they are just the Super Seven, and they will remain that way as long as the Cathedral football team keeps putting up wins.

The Green Wave basketball team is short nine players to start the 2011-12 basketball season, and the seven players that are fighting through the first part of the season are off to a rough start.

Cathedral is off to a 0-3 start, but head coach Peter Arnold said his team is trying not to pay too much attention to the players they are missing.

“We just have to eliminate (being shorthanded) out of our minds and go about it like this is what we got,” he said. “We call ourselves the super seven, and we just have to focus and not get too caught up with the idea of, ‘Well, it’s OK if we don’t win because if we have everybody we’re going to do better.’

“That doesn’t do anything about the present.”

Arnold said he is pleased with how hard his team has played so far, but they are still making the same mistakes in each game.

“We’ve been broken hearted in all three games that we didn’t win,” he said. “Overall I’m pleased with the effort, but we have to correct the mistakes we’re making.”

Arnold said foul trouble is the biggest problem the Green Wave is running into during games.

“Besides missing potentially four starters, when you have seven people in a basketball game, you have to play so careful on defense to not get into foul trouble, so at times we’re not playing good enough defense.”

Arnold said despite the precautions, Cathedral has finished two games this season with just five players, and one game they were forced to finish with only four.

Arnold said when the football players do return, it will take approximately a month for them to get back into basketball shape.

“Some of them have been shooting, but that’s the extent,” he said. “There’s too much risk for them to get hurt.”

Arnold said it generally takes football players three to four weeks to get over the minor injuries they sustained during the season, and to get used the constant motion of a basketball game.

“In football you go for eight seconds at a time, and in basketball it’s non-stop, so it’s two different kinds of conditioning.”

Arnold said another issue his team is facing is only having seven players at practice.

“I have two (extra) guys at practice, so how do you simulate defense with only two guys being guarded? It’s a huge issue. We don’t have competition in practice. The only real competition there has been is in the three games, and it shows.”

Arnold said he expects the team to improve once the football players return to basketball form, and the transition should not be too difficult for the team.

“It will be easy,” he said. “There’s potentially four starters out there (playing football). We will have to ease them in. We are probably looking at early January (when the team hits its peak).”

The Cathedral boys’ soccer team is in the same boat as the basketball squad.

The Green Wave soccer boys are 0-3 on the season and missing four starters and four other players that could provide a boost to the team once football season ends.

“We just have to keep our heads up and stay positive until we get those guys back,” head coach Dennis Hogue said. “When we get them back, the whole dynamic of the team will change.”

Hogue said the Green Wave varsity team has played with a large number of junior varsity players to start the season.

“We had two ninth graders, two eighth graders and a seventh grader on the field (in the last game), and that’s after they played a whole junior varsity game.”

Hogue said the team has lost all three games by two goals or fewer, and they are competing and working hard.

Although Hogue is ready to get those players back, he said that he hopes it is not until after Cathedral brings home a state championship in football.

“It could be three weeks if they go to state, and we hope they do,” he said. “But at the same time, I can’t wait. I’m salivating just thinking about (getting them back). Our attitude is frustrated now, but when they come back, and things start clicking, it’s going to be fun again.”