Recruiting Report: Jake Kutina (2017)
Jake Kutina suddenly finds himself as the old soul for a Shakopee team facing a lot of roster turnover from a season ago. He’s ready for the challenge. Kutina is one of two regular rotation players back for the Sabers…
Access all of Prep Hoops
Continue reading this article and more.
Continue ReadingJake Kutina suddenly finds himself as the old soul for a Shakopee team facing a lot of roster turnover from a season ago. He’s ready for the challenge.
Kutina is one of two regular rotation players back for the Sabers and after taking a back seat role as a junior, Kutina is ready to lead Shakopee in 2016.
“We lost eight seniors and five guys who started at least half of the season,” said Kutina. “We’re really young. I was chosen as a captain and I’m going to push my teammates and try to get the most out of them. They haven’t been in a lot of the situations I have and I’m going to just try to have a good impact on every part of the game.”
Kutina is a multi-dimensional player. As an underclassmen, Kutina played mostly as a point guard. A five-inch growth spurt after his sophomore year pushed him into more of a forward role and it’s helped his game a great deal.
At 6-foot-5, Kutina has the guard skills to be a matchup nightmare for teams. He’s got the quickness and ball skills to pull bigger players out onto the perimeter where he can drive or shoot and he’s got the size and length to take smaller players inside.
“Offensively I can score inside but I can also handle the ball and shoot threes,” said Kutina. “I think in college I’m more of a small forward because of those guard skills but at the high school level, I draw mostly bigger guys so I try to take them outside.”
Kutina isn’t just an offensive player though and his idea of stepping up doesn’t just mean scoring points.
“Defensively I’ll look to guard guys like [Lakeville North’s Jordan] Reuvers, [Lakeville South’s] Shae Mitchell and [Rosemount’s Luke and Alex Loehr] — the other team’s best players or forwards,” said Kutina. “I’ll try to take on the rebounding load too. Anything I can do to help our team win.”
Kutina has several local colleges recruiting him including Hamline, Augsburg and St. Johns. He took a visit to St. John’s recently and was very impressed.
“I really liked it there,” said Kutina. “They sure make you feel like it’s a second home. It was a really cool experience.”
Kutina said he’d like to hold off making a college decision until after the basketball season. He’s got several enticing options and wants to be as open as possible throughout the process.