The Big Interview: Ravenwood Head Coach Kris Hooper

PICTURED: Ravenwood High   Ravenwood High Head Coach Kris Hooper talked about his RHS players and the team overall. Enjoy.   PrepHoopsTN: How did the guys look (in June)? Coach Hooper: Considering we lost seven seniors and only have one returning starter back we looked really good. Very young but have a chance to be extremely fun to watch. Going to play very up-tempo brand of basketball. Free-flowing. Going to open the court offensively and defensively. We beat a really good Upperman team with all of their pieces this summer, so that gave us a glimpse of how good we can be. Once you get into district and you are scouted that kind of changes things, but very excited about what we put on tape this summer.   PrepHoopsTN: Who is your veteran? Your returning starter, I guess. Coach Hooper: Our returning starter is [player_tooltip player_id='3660394' first='Braden' last='White']. This will be his second year starting at the point position. Him and [player_tooltip player_id='2912410' first='Brooks' last='Caudill'] will split at the point this year. Braden will play a lot more at the shooting guard which he hasn't played but he was our best three-point shooter last year, averaging about 43% from the three-point line, so we are going to try to get him on the wing and try to get him a few more shots as opposed to having him have to create. That is going to fall into [player_tooltip player_id='2912410' first='Brooks' last='Caudill']'s wheelhouse and hopefully that is going to translate to us scoring more. We struggled to score last year at times. We are trying to do some things that increase the amount of points we are scoring per game. We did a good job of defending. We did not do a good job of putting the ball in the hole all the time.   PrepHoopsTN: How does [[player_tooltip player_id='3660394' first='Braden' last='White']] look compared to last year? I saw some of your workout times/measurements. It looks like he is doing pretty well compared to his teammates. Coach Hooper: He has a little quick twitch to him. Extremely quick point guard. Sees the floor extremely well. He has a great 15' game. That little mid-range that the 1980's and 1990's would be proud of...that is his go-to game. We are really pushing on him to do that. He is getting a lot better getting physical defensively on the ball and being able to keep people out of that rim area.   PrepHoopsTN: I know Brooks pretty well from afar. How does his game compare to six months ago? Coach Hooper: Brooks is one of the guys I am most proud of because he came in as a freshman as a straight up gunslinger. Really thinking that basketball was 'get me the ball and I go in 1-on-5 and get shots up quick'. His game has totally transformed into an all-around game. He played every game last year as a sophomore. Played anywhere from 4-8 minutes a game. He has a taste of it. He has figured out how to put the team first both offensively and defensively and then create out of that. It makes him a much more dangerous player because you don't know if he is going to the rim to get his or he is going to the rim to set somebody else up. He has such a great feel in the halfcourt especially in the pick'n'roll. He does a great job understanding whether he is going to dump it or pick'n'pop. His basketball game has really grown leaps and bounds. He went to Bryan this past weekend and they really liked him. His game now translates to the college game. He is able to do what college coaches are going to want him to do both on and off the ball.   Coach Hooper: We have a couple of other guys. [player_tooltip player_id='3624566' first='Beckett' last='Williams'] who transferred in here from Brentwood Academy. He is sort of a combo point guard. We sort of how three point guards that we are able to roll out there. Last year our strength was at the frontline with Brock Wissmar and Danny Brown. Sam Stepan and Isaac Brent. Now we are transitioning and going to flip that, and our strength is in the backcourt. We are going to try to play a brand of basketball where we are a little more 80' as opposed to a 40' game that I am traditionally known for.   PrepHoopsTN: Do you have any younger guys I need to know about? Coach Hooper: [player_tooltip player_id='3660414' first='Blake' last='Moore']. A rising junior. 6'5". He is going to play the "5" for us, but he is really more of a 3/4. His running mate is [player_tooltip player_id='3660406' first='Canon' last='Moss']. A really good soccer player. He is about 6'3". Very similar than Blake but he is more dynamic than Blake outside the arc.   We are excited. We have [player_tooltip player_id='3664945' first='Zay' last='Brown'] who is Christian Brown's little brother. He is about 6'3" right now. We are hoping he gets up to 6'8" or 6'9". Tristan Gentry. Just an athlete. He is going to contribute. Brooks Brown. Our starting quarterback. He was our 6th man last year. He will be back as a starter as soon as football season gets over with. We are expecting him to share the leading scorer duties with Braden. We are excited. It is going to be a different brand of basketball. A little different than what we have done with me in year's past.   PrepHoopsTN: Thanks Coach. A lot of great stuff. Coach Hooper: Thank you.

PICTURED: Ravenwood High