Recruiting Report: Nathan Heise (2020)
One of the most enjoyable games of the year was watching Lake City 6-foot-4 guard Nathan Heise direct his team to a win at lead guard. Heise continues to prove he is one of the state’s more talented junior. The…
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Continue ReadingOne of the most enjoyable games of the year was watching Lake City 6-foot-4 guard Nathan Heise direct his team to a win at lead guard. Heise continues to prove he is one of the state’s more talented junior.
The Tigers are currently ranked 3rd in Class AA basketball with a 16-2 record led by the 21.4 points per game from Heise. Lake City has won eight games in a row while Nathan continues to grow as a player, and as a matured student athlete.
“I have known Nate since they were born as my son (Jackson) is in the same grade and I’ve been coaching these kids since they were toddlers,” Tigers Head Coach Greg Berge said. “Nate has been a point guard his whole life, he’s had the ball in his hands his whole life.
“We’ve had some really good upperclassmen point guards so Nate has got to play off the ball so I think a lot of people think of Nate as just a shooter. A sniper kind of kid. But Nate can take anybody off the ball, he can shoot off the ball, he can score inside and out, and the best thing about Nate is that he is a great passer and he has great vision.
“If guys try to help off too much Nate has had games where he has dominated not necessarily with scoring, but he may have 20 points, eight assists, and eight rebounds. He just makes all the little plays, the Gretzky plays. He sees the game so well and he is an elite player in my opinion. He can score at levels and when he is on we are a very tough team to beat.”
The all around ability of Nathan Heise was evident when he put up five three-pointers and poured in 23 points in Lake City’s 73-54 victory over Clear Lake (WI) at the Border Battle. Heise also had seven assists and five rebounds.
“I have put in a lot work and that shows in the program that we have at Lake City,” Nathan told Prep Hoops. “We calculate how many hours we put in over the summer and Reid and myself are always on top of that. I lift weights, I play AAU basketball and this year I will play for the Minnesota Fury, and I spend a lot of time shooting around with my dad every day.”
As Coach Berge said before, you can not simply label Nathan as a shooter and go on with your day. The guys from Clear Lake know it. The players at Stewartville know this (27 points, seven assists, six steals and four boards). Lewiston-Altura (24 points, nine assists, eight rebounds and three steals) players are aware and top five Class AAA school Mahtomedi is well aware as Heise’s 26 points, 11 rebounds, five assists, and four blocks for the Tigers led them to a controlling 72-58 win.
“It doesn’t matter to me where I play,” Heise said. “Last year I didn’t play much point guard at all but the roles have changed a little bit so I bring up the ball, but point guard, shooting guard, I love to play either one.”
The Tigers have a proud program with three state boys basketball state championship trophies in their school. That said, they have only been at state once (2017) in the last 28 seasons of basketball. This year’s team has the talent to make that run but the section (1AA) is tough.
“We are going to try and play our best basketball by the end of the year working up to it each game,” Heise said. “I think we are really going to try and get the one seed. In our section that would really help us out. And our team is growing every day.
“Justin Wohlers, he is a ninth grader. At the beginning of the year he was timid and didn’t want to shoot much but he has really grown. He shoots a lot more. Reid Gastner has become a better scorer with his inside/outside game. And then our big guy Josh Matanich his game has really improved and our role guys off the bench are really making the hustle plays and rebounding.”
The creative playmaking, high level shooting, all around work ethic and competitive fight of Nathan Heise is going to make a college basketball program much better. What schools have jumped in ahead and started talking to Heise?
“I’m hearing from quite a few division two schools like Minnesota-Duluth, Northern State, Winona State and a few division one schools like Northern Iowa, Drake, and a little bit from North Dakota State.”
So if things go right for Heise and Lake City, what will that dream season look like?
“The perfect season would be winning the conference hopefully and then making it out of our section which is a very tough section,” Heise said. “Making it to our ultimate goal of making it to state.”