Coach’s Take: Barnstormers 15U (Part I)
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
Kenny Quinn, 5’9 G, Hoover
“Adding Kenny was probably one of the biggest additions for us this year. It doesn’t seem like it maybe…just because he didn’t score a lot of points for us, and he probably only started about half our games for us and so forth. But his defensive ability and his mindset just going in to games, and the way he talked to the bench and he talked on the floor, and the way he could guard ball-screens was better than anyone I ever coached. And that was really contagious to some of the other kids. Defense was always a real issue for this group in seventh and eight grade, and adding him and a couple other pieces really tuned defense into a strength of ours — and I think we can really thank Kenny for that. He’s an awesome kid, a real team-first kid. He had a lot of opportunities and could have played just about anywhere he wanted to play, and would have been the star on any other team. But he gave that up. And that kind of attitude, and that team-first mentality is something that we really appreciated.”
Jackson Molstead, 5’10 G, Charles City
“He’s played for us since he was in fourth grade, so he’s played with us for a long, long time. And it was an interesting year for him. He started varsity for his class 3A Charles City team and was the leading scorer for them as a freshman, and he was asked to take a lot of shots and really carry a big load for that team. And to go from that group and then to be asked play the point guard position for us, and share the ball and get us into our sets and some of those things, and not necessarily asked to score the ball much and do different things, he was able to accept that role. And it’s going to be fun to watch him turn-around and do a lot of the same things he did with Charles City last year. And I think the overall development of him this summer probably will lead to him being a much better overall player, because he was asked to do entirely different things than he was asked to do for his school team.”
Trey Hutcheson, 6’4 SF, Linn-Mar
“The first tournament of the year we lost to All-Ohio Red by one point, and All Ohio Red was one of the best teams in the country, I mean they were phenomenal. And at that point, that was when I really kind of knew that this team might be something special, and we might be able to put something together. But Trey, in that game, I think he played about a minute. He didn’t do a lot, he had a couple different chances where he was in for 30-40 seconds and he didn’t do much or get a lot of opportunities that game. And kudos to him, rather than put his head down and say ‘hey, maybe I’m not cut out for this kind of thing,’ and that kind of stuff, he just kept working, he kept his head up, he was a great teammate. The next tournament he got a little bit more (playing time), and the next tournament a little bit more. By the third tournament of the year he was starting almost every game for us. And he really proved that he could do a lot of things for us in a lot of different ways. And with his athleticism, the way he rebounds, the way that he moves off the basketball — he can really add a lot to this team. And I’m pretty proud of him for keeping with it and not getting frustrated. And it was fun just seeing his continued development, that was really cool. And he’s only going to keep getting better, I would project him to be 6’7 to 6’9 something in there. His dad is the all-time leading rebounder at Western Illinois. And his cousin was a D1 player in Michigan, and I kind of see Trey headed down that same path.”
Jackson Frericks, 6’7 F, Cedar Falls
“Jackson is a kid that hasn’t played a lot of competitive basketball, especially compared to other guys on this team. He didn’t play real competitive AAU until this year. He was a real competitive swimmer — state level, championship level swimmer. And he gave it up just this past year so he could focus on basketball. So he was a little bit behind everyone when we first started working with him last summer. But he’s really come a long ways, he’s a really hard worker, and he’s got a lot of talent to him. He’s long, he’s agile, and I see him at probably a three at the next level even though he’s probably 6’6, 6’7 somewhere in there. I’m excited to see what happens with him at Cedar Falls.”
Logan Wolf, 6’2 SG, Cedar Falls
“The first thing that I would say about Logan is that he is a year and a few months younger than anyone else on this team — he’s super young. I think he’s going to continue to develop. He’s one of those kids that I look at and the arrow is pointing up with him — more so with him than maybe than any other kid. He’s got huge upside, comes from a really good family, he’s a really good athlete. And he does a lot of nice things right now. He’s an excellent defender, especially on-ball — he steals a lot of basketballs and tips a lot of basketballs, stuff like that. And he’s got a real knack for the game, a real high IQ type kid. And as he continues to progress I think he’s going to be really good.”