ECI Finishes Strong, Hits 20-win Mark
The ECI Prospects 17U team had a rough start to the year but their mid-summer victory run gave them a nice 20 win total and put several of their plays in great spots. “The greatest moment of the year was…
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Continue ReadingThe ECI Prospects 17U team had a rough start to the year but their mid-summer victory run gave them a nice 20 win total and put several of their plays in great spots.
“The greatest moment of the year was we were approaching the end of our AAU season and had won 10 of our last 12 games including a few games in Milwaukee,” said ECI Prospects Head Coach Lucas Moormann. “We won our Showcase game against a good and scrappy DTA team and then won our pool play game against WOTN.
“We entered the Platinum bracket losing the first game to Quad City Elite but then bounced back with wins against the Minnesota Suns and WOTN again. We then lost in the Final Four of the Gold to a very physical and athletic team in Missouri Hustle who went on to win it.
“We had a lot of fun in Milwaukee off of the court as well going to iCombat, the beach, the mall, and Dave & Busters. Although we didn’t finish in the top 8 of the SPTS as we would of liked (Finished 9th), we played hard in every game including a tough loss to Minnesota Comets by 3 but rebounded with convincing wins in the bottom bracket of the League.”
That gave ECI their 20 wins for the season. The total is good but the work to get their going 10-2 in their last dozen games is what matters. It was all about growth.
“The biggest growth that our team had was our willingness to get after it on the defensive end,” said Coach Moormann. “We struggled to defend the first third of the year probably giving up an average of 65 points but really figured it out in the ECI Spring Preview in May and started giving up around an average of 50 points a game the rest of the year.
“With limited practices on the year we really found a way to gel together as a team usually giving us a chance to win our games. We never really had a full team until our ECI tournament and from there on out we had 9 or 10 guys putting us back at full strength.”
ECI has one guy headed to a D1 school (seven footer Jordan Meidinger), another 4-5 that can land in the NSIC (out of the group of Lucas Meyer, Justin Engg, Siman Sem, Jacob Mertens, Gavin Moeller, and Zach Dahlen) and then a couple more guys with NAIA offers (Logan Nelson, Austin Reed).
Add in that several of these guys are being recruited by the MIAC (top D3 league) and you have a group ready for college basketball.
“This team was made up of ten guys who love the game of basketball and our fundamentally solid,” Coach Moormann said. “They always played at 100 percent and were very coachable , doing whatever they were asked.
“We struggled to score at times but each player who score in waves throughout the year just trying to find their role. By the end of the year they really figured out each one’s roles and that made us so much better. This team was loaded with smart basketball players who were good at adapting and reacting to opposing defenses.
“Only one of our players has committed to play college basketball at this point (Jordan Meidinger to NDSU), but seven of the remaining nine have multiple offers to play basketball but plan to take visits in early fall.”