Coaches Corner for March 5th: Rusty Hicks, Boone Boys Basketball

With us on Coach's Corner here in KWBG, get a chance to put a wrap on the Boone Boys basketball season as Rusty Hicks joining us.

Tori Dorsa fell in the postseason as they lost to Gilbert who of course eventually makes the state tournament and Rusty we'll get to that here in just a little bit but I guess going back to start the year I know the one thing that was you know going to be a little bit of a struggle number one was we lost one of our one of our guys that we had had the last well since you've been here basically with Jude Baumgardner and he was going to be down for a while what was that kind of dynamic when you knew he was going to be out for a while to start the season?

Yeah it definitely changed things we had you know we had prepared you know just schematically to have them basically with what we're going to do on both you know into the floor and had kind of just prepared for that in the offseason and then you know unfortunately he did have a bad injury there in the football we kind of had that and we didn't even know if he was getting up playing or not we didn't know if he was going to come back so you know just you know kudos to him he still came to every practice he still you know came and did a good job and helped to practice and then eventually you know obviously ended up playing but yeah it totally you know we had to you know going to November there everybody like all right we don't have him you know we're missing a we're missing a 6'4 good athlete kid we're going to have to kind of revamp what we do and how we do it on the fly here because definitely you know we got smaller we got a lot younger and we just had to completely you know try to change you know what we'd originally planned on doing you know not the end of the world but it's just nice when you can you know have a little prep work into it before it actually happens such short notice so definitely changed a lot but uh you know that's that's athletic that's coaching and you just got to roll with it and try to do the best you can and and put your guys in the best spot to hopefully have a chance to be successful well if there's anything that that did was i think it and i don't want to say put pressure on maybe it elevated what Landon Myers had to do what Hendrix Mormon had to do but it also i think you know a Cole Christenson uh Brandon Holm uh Braxton Gifford who i know we'll talk about quite a bit able was in that in that group as well but all those kids kind of had to group together coach too i don't want to say make up for Jude but to kind of add to where he would have been yeah for sure you know and starting with Landon at Hendrix you know there are two phenomenal seniors uh with regards to just you know the type of kids they are and you know how they just handle themselves and do things but you know i told them at the last game you know there's always lessons after the season that you can learn uh you know not just from the scoreboard from the winning and losing but just how certain guys handle themselves and i told them you know Landon Myers was a guy that basically sat on the bench for three years i mean he played a little last year but like but he never wavered he never he never pouted he never felt he never felt sorry for himself he never like had a bad attitude he was always positive and he just kept working he kept showing up to stuff uh and he just kept getting better and better and i told the young guys i said that's a that's a lesson for a lot of you guys because you know in today's day and age you know like a lot of kids if they aren't getting to play either they have a bad attitude or they quit or they want to keep working i said this is a lesson for some of you guys that maybe they're gonna play as much so that's a great lesson for you guys like stick with it keep working and usually good things usually good things happen so i told him that was a good lesson then for Hendrix like there's a kid that i don't think i've coached a kid i've coached kids that cares much but i i don't think i've coached a kid that cares any more than he does about the game about like kids he literally breathed eight slept basketball like everything everything he did was decision he made was based on you know being a varsity basketball player like you know he not only bought into like the work that was required like that we set up for him but he he bought into what a lot of kids are missing these days the extra work what am i going to go do on my own and what am i going to go do to get better so i can be a varsity basketball player and and he totally maximized his athletic ability and i'm not telling him i'm not saying anything he doesn't already know like he's not the most athletic kid but he definitely he definitely got the most out of himself as any kids either coach for you know he's not the most athletic kid but heck he averaged over 12 points again game and maybe the toughest 3a conference in the school and he made 63 this year which was you know like second most ever in a single season at Boone so the kid definitely worked his tail off and it was a lesson for you know again a lesson for the young guys like you know what are you willing to do to give yourself a chance to be successful and Hendrix definitely did that and then quickly to the young guys like that it's huge that they got to play like Cole Christensen Braxton Gifford Brandon Holm Ryan Bowers and then Abel Tunnsvik a freshman so there's four sophomores and one freshman that got a ton of playing time so yeah we took our lumps this year but i think that's only going to moving into next season that's going to help us a ton they're going to know you know the adjustment of playing varsity basketball is huge and they're going to have a year of that and understanding the speed and flow of a varsity basketball game so i think in the end it helped a ton i know one thing that was is something that we're still working toward is getting your own shot finding ways to get yourself open we can set up all the plays that we want rusty and we can set 19 different screens to get you open but sometimes in the end you have to get your own shot off the dribble you have to get your own shot off a pass i mean there's some things you kind of have to do on your own i feel like we're taking that step forward i feel like we have some younger guys that can do that do you feel like we're kind of improving in that area yeah that's definitely something you know with the young guys we really tried to harp on them all all year long is that you know you have you have to be ultra aggressive uh you have to be ultra aggressive and you have to be willing just to just to go at it and you have to be willing you know like we like sometimes like say sometimes you just have to be able to just play basketball you're right uh ryan you can't just always be like all right we're gonna run 52 steps we're gonna execute all the steps perfect that's not gonna happen so lots of times what happens high school basketball is you just have to play basketball you don't have to be able to go make a play you have to deal you have to be you have to be aggressive with your mindset that you're gonna go get a paint touch you're gonna get to the rack you're gonna get the free throw line i was just putting a bunch of our metric metric staff together from last year compared to this year just comparing some stuff and obviously we played a little different had different players but this year we shot we only shot 8.4 free throws a game made five like that's just telling me that we're not being aggressive enough now i do feel ryan like you're talking from the beginning of the year towards the end of the year we did have those young guys were were becoming more aggressive and more willing to attack the basket more willing to take open shots so i think it did get better but we still in order to be successful we gotta be way more aggressive on offense we gotta be more attacking and part of that too is our scheme and kind of how we played this year so next year again the scheme will go back to more attacking more aggressive getting those paint touches getting to the basket getting those driving kicks so uh but yeah we do have guys that i think can do it they just got to keep developing that mindset to do it that makes sense no absolutely does i think too because what we're losing i mean with losing landen meyers inside and losing hendrix mormon who could do stuff outside and jude obviously could do in or the out i mean he could he could shoot the three or he could you know post you up down low with what's returning next year i mean russey i already we talked about brennan home and and brackston gifford what he gave you this year and cole uh ables in that mix ryan bowers in that mix as well i mean you have a good list of kids that are coming back there's probably some i haven't mentioned yet just because i didn't see them this year which is exciting and also terrifying i know for head coach yeah uh you're right we're definitely the size you know basically every year i feel like that i've been here we've always had some decent size or some decent length next year unless some guys really grow we are going to be a little on the the smaller side which is fine not the end of the world uh you know my belief has always been when you're smaller and not as big you definitely want to play a lot faster and a lot more aggressive and it just be just schematically and look a little bit different because you don't have a six seven or six five like landen or jude to throw it into and try to score so it's going to look different how we get inside but uh but yeah like those sophomores and then uh maybe a junior or two moving forward depending on how much they want to work and then there's also some really talented other freshmen coming up that will challenge for some uh i believe that will challenge for some varsity minutes next year just depending on how much they want to work and put the time in this offseason there's definitely some some talent there with the freshmen coming up that are going to be sophomores so uh yeah a little terrifying but not totally scary uh also a little kind of exciting just because the last two years the sophomore and freshman groups have been pretty solid and there are also uh two groups that we've had playing since basically fourth grade uh through the Boone basketball club travel basketball they true they played it they played a lot and i think i was talking to another coach we haven't really seen the fruits of that labor with the basketball club yet but it's starting to come those are the first two groups that we've really hit hard at a place since they're young i think uh as they get here into their junior and senior years playing together i think there's some some really good potential there uh to have some success so uh yeah a little scary when you're when you're younger but also exciting with i think what we have coming in the potential that we have well i just think with the varsity minutes that's going to be returning with with the you know what i what i just named five or six kids right there i mean it's been a minute i feel like since i've been able to go through you know both hands uh rusty and say okay there's a lot of minutes that are coming back and it just court time you know i i know wrestling coaches always talk to me about mat time man when it comes to basketball just being on the court what's it like in Adele on a Friday night when they're really good or what's it like at Bondurant on a Tuesday night when they're really good or Ballard comes to town ranked number one what's it like playing against that all those kids we just mentioned rusty they've gone through the war they're gonna i mean that's not an excuse to use next year no for sure and the exciting part is a lot of those guys you know are only sophomores so they're gonna be juniors which means they'll have their junior year which means then they'll also have your senior year and then you have some of these other younger guys coming up they're gonna be just sophomores they'll get some playing time experience which means the following year you're gonna have some kids that have played a lot of basketball moving forward and if you look at the teams in the state tournament this year like a lot of them are very senior laden like big time at their top five six guys i mean you look at three a class they're just loaded with seniors that have played and played a lot since they were young so uh for sure and you know it you right the court time thing Ryan is is 100 correct you know you can't really it's hard to simulate the raccoon river conference in practice it's just it's really hard to simulate the physicality and the speed of it so just actually experiencing it okay is is so important and we have like you said we'll have five to six guys that had some pretty good experience and experience you know that the raccoon the river because it's not like ninth grade basketball it's not like middle school basketball like it's not even remotely close to any of that so you know you always ask these young guys to tell deal tell or sorry the older guys that tell the young guy you know what's it like playing the raccoon and basically all my say the speed and physicality of it is such a leap but once you've done it and you've played in it and know that helps the game slow down a lot so i think that is definitely uh something we'll look forward to here in the next few years of just the experience piece of it yeah for sure you will rusty thanks for all the time on coach's corners thanks for all the stuff during games as well appreciate you i know i'll see you around this summer but uh thanks for a fun season and we'll look forward to doing again coming up in november you bet ryan thanks for all that coverage of uh all the teams in the area and especially our team as well we appreciate it you bet rusty hick's again joining us boom boys basketball here on coach's corner