Coach’s Take: Barnstormers 15U (Part II)
Tony Roe, Travis Hines and I certainly provided our fair share of player evaluations this spring and summer, but we thought we’d give the guys who know the kids best a chance to be vocal: the coaches. Greg Stephens — Iowa…
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Continue ReadingTony Roe, Travis Hines and I certainly provided our fair share of player evaluations this spring and summer, but we thought we’d give the guys who know the kids best a chance to be vocal: the coaches.
Greg Stephens — Iowa Barnstormers Co-Program Director
Noah Hart, 6’1 G, Waukee
“He was a kid that had played with Kingdom Hoops for a long, long time, and his dad had coached with the program for a bunch of years. And he came over to us just this last spring and we were really excited to get him . We knew him because he used to always beat us all the time. Some of the kids didn’t even really like him at first because he was kind of the enemy, but he fit right in with the guys. He’s a kid that really had a defensive mindset, he has a little bit of a chip on his shoulder and he and Kenny (Quinn) really turned us around defensively. He’s a kid that never stops talking on the floor, never stops talking on the bench, he’s one of the best teammates we’ve got. He shoots the ball really, really well. He didn’t start the season shooting particularly well for us, but towards the end of the year he was becoming one of our best shooters, or even our best shooter. And we started him the whole month of July, and he really brought a lot to the table.”
Jake Hilmer, 5’10 PG, North Linn
“He’s really talented, and we know that. But also when you look at some of the results that happen when he’s on the floor with us…when he’s playing we’re incredibly successful. And he missed two tournaments this season because of baseball, and the two tournaments he missed are the two tournaments we had the poorest results. And I think it says a lot about Jake that he was the one big difference in those events that kind of changed why we had been seeing different results than what we had been doing. He makes everyone around him so much better that he could score two points, four points, not even score, and he still makes such a huge difference in the game. He doesn’t even have to get a bunch of shots up to make a difference in the game. And his ability to get his teammates involved is just unparalleled with guys in our program. I’m really excited about coaching him for the next couple of years.”
Patrick McCaffery, 6’8 G/F, Iowa City West
“He’s the tallest kid on the team, but we play him at the two or the three instead of the four or the five. And he’s so incredibly skilled and so smart at his size, and he can do a lot of different things with the basketball. And that’s why we like to have him out on the perimeter, we like to have the ball in his hands where he can make plays for us. He’s not a kid that’s going to go out and try and get 30 or 40 points, or do those kinds of things. He doesn’t take very many bad shots. If fact, we have told him that he passes up too many shots, we want him to shoot the ball more — the best players on the team should take a few bad shots. And he’s a kid that I’ll bet he shot 60 percent in July because he never took any bad shots. He’s just a really smart kid that’s definitely a team-first kid. He’s definitely the leader of the team, as far as off the court and the personalty of the team. He’s just really talented and he’s one of the best kids that we have.”
Derek Krogmann, 6’6 PF, West Delaware
“Derek is a really talented kid. He was a kid that when he was 6’2 or 6’3 I thought that was all we were going to get out of him, I didn’t know exactly how much he was going to grow. But every time I look at him he gets a little bit taller, he gets a little bit leaner, his arms just keep on growing. He’s 6’6 and has a 7′ wing-span. And now he’s developing a perimeter game where he can put the ball on the ground, he can shoot the mid-range jumper and he can do some others things too. And he keeps surpassing some of my expectations just because of his work-ethic, and he just keeps on getting better. The best thing about Derek though is his motor. He just keeps working, he’s non-stop. He has a nose for the ball, he’s always around the rim and he’s always around the ball — he comes up with a lot of balls outside of his area. I thought him and Jake, between the two of them they really made us go, and really carried us sometimes.”
Nick Timmerman, 6’2 G, Dubuque Senior
“Nick is a really, really tough kid, and he’s another kid that gave up a lot to be a part of this thing and really get this thing going. He was playing with a different group and he came back to us last April. And ever since then he’s been one of those leaders, along with Patrick. And he’s one of those kids that everybody likes to be around, everybody kind of follows around. He’s a little bit cocky, he backs it up though. He’s a tremendous shooter, probably one of the best shooters in the state — he shot over 45 percent from 3 for us this year. Sometimes he might shoot a few too many 3s, I’d like to see him put the ball on the ground and get to the hoop a little bit more. But I’m really excited about how he’s progressed, and how he’s carried himself on the floor and so forth.”
Noah Carter, 6’4 F, Dubuque Senior
“At the start of the year I wasn’t really sure what we were going to get out of Noah. He was another kid who was a first-time player with us this year, it was the first time I ever had a chance to coach him. I didn’t know him as well as I knew the other kids. Like Noah (Hart) and Kenny (Quinn) were first-year players for us, but I had coached against them for two or three years so I knew them pretty well. Noah has really grown into himself — he’s continued to sprout up and continued to work on his game. He has amazing touch around the rim. Anything he shoots from 10-feet and in somehow just goes in — I don’t know how it works. He’s become a really good 3-point shooter for us, and he’s really worked hard at that stuff. And he’s a kid who I anticipate will be 6’6 or 6’7 down the road. And I think he’s going to be a really nice player for us down the road.”