 Hello everybody and welcome to TV8's 2005-2006 High School Basketball Preview Show. My name is Mike Martin. Joining me is the coach Chris Wright. Chris, we've got a lineup of really great coaches this year. One newbie in the group. Yeah, we do. We have Lutheran head coach Todd Decker who's coming off a conference championship a year ago. Brett Phlipsy who's Christian team I believe won just a couple years ago and is ready to compete again. We have of course Cheboygan Norse Tom Desatelle who had to rally the troops last year and again got another conference championship. And Tim Schultz who's actually a Plymouth native is now taking over at Cheboygan South. Plymouth, pardon me, Tim was a coach at New Holstein last year for a couple years. Yes he was and he has some brothers that are coaches and I believe down in Waukesha as well. So a lot of basketball in his family. We got a couple other things lined up that we want to do. We're going to discuss the conference races in the Fox River Valley and the Central Lakeshore Conference. We also want to talk about the all city picks and this is something that the press has done for, gosh it seems like about 12 or 13 years. And it's kind of an interesting thing to do it ahead of time so we'll talk about that. And then we also want to talk about some underclassmen Chris that might have an impact this year. Well I think it's just going to be an exciting year again for basketball and we always look forward to it. It's been a couple of weeks since the football season so I'm ready to go. We're going to step out right now and when we come back, Chris will have Lutheran head basketball coach Todd Decker. So stay tuned, we'll be right back. Welcome back everybody. I'm with Cheboygan Lutheran head coach Todd Decker. Conference championship last season must have been pretty exciting. Yeah it was a good time for us. It was a great run for us that we had and satisfying for both players and coaches. It was real good for our school and our program. Now at Lutheran you've had some coaches there for a long time. I know Mike's been with you for just about since the beginning. Do you think that helps in consistency in your program? Oh definitely. Mike Theobald like you said has been here for 10 years with me. He knows the things that I want. We've had a veteran JV coach now that's been there for a number of years. Freshman coach for three or four. Yes because then down the line we know the drills and our plays. Kind of know what I'm looking for. It helps when we get to the varsity level practice time and that those guys know the terminology. So it's great to have assistant coaching staff like I have. They're the behind the scenes guys and a lot of times they don't get that notoriety but that's what makes a program your assistant coaches. Well let's talk a little bit about your team. You're really big up front this year. Now we have some size. You know with John at John Decker at 6'6 and we have Adam Dillman at 6'4 and Andrew Haling's a big kid. So we do have some size. They're not as experienced maybe inside because they didn't get a lot of playing time last year but it's nice to have that size and I know other schools look for that and we're going to try to utilize that along with some guard play that we do have. Probably the most asked question for you and maybe it never ever gets old for you and so why should I be any different but it's kind of hard to believe that John's actually a senior and why don't you tell us a little bit about not just John but some of the things he's worked on over the summer to improve his game. Well he puts an incredible amount of time and work into his play every night. Every day he had a schedule that he had to do and worked very hard this summer, worked at the AAU and did a lot of league specialty camps. So it is hard to believe that it's been four years. It's been a great blessing for me to be able to coach your son and we're looking for big things. He showed a lot of leadership already. The guys found but his work ethic has really been paying off. He's been really hitting the ballhailing passing footwork is what he really worked on this past year to be a little bit quicker and work on that quickness and along with his shooting. He always loves doing that so that's not going to be a problem for him. Yeah it's hard to believe the four years are gone already. Yes it is. It goes by pretty quick. Yeah well you know you did graduate you know I would say four returning or excuse me four guys left to your program so who are some of the new faces we're going to see for the Crusaders this year? Well we're losing four starters. I'm really excited about Brian Imel. He's one of our guards, our captains. He went to a lot of camps with John this summer and he turned some heads so I think he's going to be one of the better guards I think even in the city in our conference and he's going to make some people go where did that guy come from. I think he's going to help us. Zach Hasenstein I think he's going to be a junior. He has some sizes at 6'4". We have some guards of Matt Holler. He had some playing time for us last year so we lose those starters but we have some guys that I think will fill those holes and they know what's up for grabs. Our practices we've had a couple already and they get after it. They know they have that chance to be able to play so it makes the practices pretty exciting. Well we talked a little bit before as well. You can probably throw Usberg and Kohler and Christian and Howard and throw them all in a big hat and you can probably say well this team's got some strengths, this team's got some weaknesses. It should be a good race this year in the CLC. Well the CLC is always tough and if you don't come ready to play every game, it might be in a little cliche but in the CLC you have to be prepared. Usberg with their size is always tough to handle. They've got some nice players but all the way down the line I think Christian will be tough. Howard has some really nice players that are difficult to defend and go up against. Kohler has some sizes this year too. Cedar Groves may have some guys that are new but they're always tough, they're well coached. All the teams are well coached in the CLC so you have to really be prepared. So it makes for an exciting season and I'm really glad that we're in a conference that we are with the quality coaches that we have. Well thanks so much for coming in. We'll be seeing you in about a week or so. When we come back, Marty will be with Coach Flippsy from Shiboy and Christian. Joining me is Christian, head basketball coach Brett Flippsy. Brett thanks a lot for coming out on this evening. It's really bad weather out there people when we're taping this show. Hey you got a real nice squad coming back. You have three starters, one of them is picked to possibly be an all city player by the end of the year and I know the basketball Bible has you picked at finishing second in the conference. How do you feel about your squad and the conference race? You know pre-season, we always have a great team pre-season and when you look at the basketball Bible that's really a nice thing to look at in the pre-season but it doesn't mean anything. We haven't played a game yet. We do have some nice players returning and we have a very deep squad this year and that's one thing that I really look forward to coaching and I think one of the biggest issues that we're going to have is our experience. Will the seniors be able to take us? How far will they be able to take us? How quickly will the juniors be able to step up and contribute? Now this next question you could take a couple different ways and I say what are your obstacles to winning the conference? It could be the other teams, it could be an internal kind of a thing but what do you see as obstacles to your team taking a conference championship this year? Again, looking at it in the pre-season our conference is very tough top to bottom. You've got your Ousberg, your Howard's Grove, Sheboygan Lutherans but don't look past the Cedar Groves and random lakes and not to let anyone else out. Our biggest obstacle is our experience. How quickly are the juniors going to be up to speed? We've got some very talented juniors. Again, they were 17 and 3 last year as a squad but how quickly are they going to develop into varsity basketball players and how many of them will be able to contribute? So that's one of the biggest obstacles. We can only do what we can do. We'll come up and face any team we can. We'll do what's best for us. One of the kids I mentioned earlier in our segment here was Justin Simmons and he's quite a ball player for your squad last year. Why don't you talk a little bit about him and what he brings to the table for your squad? Justin is a very heady point guard. We're actually going to move him to off guard this year because we need his points. We'd like to move him to a position where he can actually get more looks. A very strong player, plays within himself. As you'll see if you watch us play, probably one of the best defensive ball players you'll see in the conference. Not guy that's going to lead the conference in steals but is always in the right spot. He's always trying to make other players around him better. Just a joy to coach as a kid. He's always willing to work hard for you, be at every practice and give everything he's got for the team. Those are the kinds of kids that really bring a lot to the table in terms of leadership. Yeah, absolutely. And again, Justin is only one part of our core. We've got a good group of kids coming back. Let's talk about your two big guys inside. That's Tyler Veldkamp and Vinny Adams. A couple of big guys. That's part of the reason why prognosticators are picking you high in the standings. What do those players offer? Well, we've got a nice sized team. We're not real huge. We don't have the 6'9", 6'8", kids. But Vinny and Tyler are going to be a force down low. But the nice part about their games is they can also step outside. We've got a couple other nice sized kids that can fill in down there. And maybe we can move. If one of the big kids are garden, Tyler or Vinny, they can move outside. They're good, complete players. They can play inside. They're strong kids. And they can take you outside and be a force with the ball. You're two wins away from 100 at Christian. What does that mean? Oh, it's nice. It's nice to hear that. I don't really keep stats that way. I didn't know that until you told me before we went on the air. That's a nice accomplishment. It just means that it doesn't mean that anything good has happened. It just means I've been there long enough. Coach, I want to thank you for stopping out on this mean night. It's been a pleasure talking to you. It was a great interview. I'm glad when I get the opportunity to do it. When we come back, Chris is going to have North High basketball coach Tom Desatel. I'm here with coach Desatel from Sheboyga North. Coach, congratulations on another conference championship last year. It wasn't too easy, but it looks like a little bit of a reloading year this year. Well, we lost a lot of good players off of last year's team. There's no question on that. When you lose your top five, six, maybe even seven players. It's a year that we remember because we had those guys with us a long time. Do you ever get nervous about playing such younger kids? I know they play a lot in the summer and that experience helps a little bit. Do you get worried when the season starts? I'm worried that they're worried. I've got to build that confidence with them every day in practice. We've got to be testing them. We've got to be challenging. We've got to give them drills that make things more difficult for them than they are in regular games if we possibly can't. I see that the Raider Shootout again this year. You've got some outstanding teams again. Well, it usually does us some good to play teams that we figure to be better than us. The Raider Shootout has been one in which we've won one. Raider Shootout championship in the last six years. In the G1 year, we had three Wisconsin Badger football players on the same team. One that recovered the winning fumble in one of the game, Eric Strickland, and then along Snapper and then, of course, Joe Thomas. So that toughened us up a little bit as did last year where we played Depeer who lost one game last year and a year before that. We just bring in good teams. I see you also have a little trip down to Illinois as well. We're going to play a team in Illinois. I was planning on playing a team that wound up being the Illinois State Champion and they've got their top player back and he's going to Duke. The coach is a good friend of mine and we're going to play him actually in Milwaukee and then that didn't work out. We wound up playing a team that he felt would be very competitive. They keep getting asked to go to national type things as well. I see the conference this year maybe is not as strong as it's been in the past but it'd be probably a wrong thing to say that it's not going to be very competitive. It's going to be extremely competitive. Well, I don't know. I think this year we return more top players, all conference players from the previous year than we did any other year and unfortunately for us, they're not north players. They're opponents. We've got a player at Green Bay Southwest. We've got two starters that weren't all conference but two starters from Sheboygan South. Senator Walk's got some honorable mention kids that were all conference. We've got an all conference player at Preble and we've got the defending conference champion with us, Notre Dame. We'll have some competition there from outstanding players with experience. Green Bay West may have the most returning and we didn't even mention them. I think the conference is going to be extremely close. This year might possibly be the last year of a north-south game at the Armory. Any final thoughts about that? Well, it's going to be something missing I think for the citizens of Sheboygan. I certainly hope that they understand the importance of getting tickets to this final game. We've had some spouses meet at the Armory for the first time. We've read about that in the newspaper. I know it's been a large part of my life for 60-some games now so that's how long I've been around and some of the north-south games were certainly memorable but we also had memorable games. We won a conference championship against Green Bay East one year when we couldn't get our gym down there. We played a memorable game with Usberg in which the place was sold out and we played a memorable game with Kohler there. So there's a lot of memories down there and fortunately for us they've been successful ones so from that perspective I enjoy playing at the Armory. Any kids that we can look for this year, you know, maybe stepping up for you this year with your squad? I think we're always secure in having some seniors to build around. We've got Dave Moss, Brad Schmitz, we've got TJ Ingalls. We've got several seniors, some of whom I didn't mention but we also got some exciting players with skill and those are younger players. They're sophomores. Every day the coaches keep coming to tell me, boy, those kids are skilled. They're really skilled and they've kind of opened the eyes of the other people in the gym that these kids can play and so we may be seeing some floor time for four sophomores and we have to see how that develops as the year wears on as well. Just some final comments, coach. I know you have some former players, you know, off the last year's team and the last couple of years, I know one's playing in Illinois and got a couple of kids out at Lakeland and we've got, you know, of course Kyle out of Platteville. Any comments on those gentlemen? Well, I'm going to try and get down to see these guys whenever I can. We have 11 kids playing college sports now that played basketball at North. One's playing soccer, two of them are playing football but eight are playing basketball currently and I think that's really a testimonial to why I'm still coaching because we've had some fine, fine athletes come out of Sheboygan. Kids that have continued their career playing for the University of Wisconsin, Sheboygan, we have two. We have two at Lakeland. We have one at Cardinal Stritch, one at Lake Forest, one at Platteville. Who did I forget? I forgot one of them. But we've got eight of them. We've got one playing soccer. We've got two playing football. So that's pretty exciting to follow and I think we're just as proud, though, of the kids that are going on and continuing their careers with continuing education. Well, thanks so much, Coach, for coming in and we look forward to seeing your squad in the next couple of weeks. When we return, Marty will be with Coach Schultz from, excuse me, Sheboygan South. He is the new head basketball coach at Sheboygan South. Tim Schultz, Tim, thanks a lot for coming in and being a part of our program. As you step into this job over at South, what are the biggest challenges for you? Well, I think the biggest challenge is on a personal level is just stepping up a division and coaching bigger conference. More kids going on for the teams. Like an extra freshman team that I wasn't used to. Assistant coaches getting everybody together. Challenge-wise, I don't think there's anything big and large in front of me besides the fact that South's coming in this year with not a lot of experience. We're starting with a brand-new kind of philosophy on some different things that were done in the past. There are some kids that are there that have been built up. That Coach Coopman did a great job of building the younger kids up that are ready to play varsity ball this year. Now, many of our viewers may not realize you teach in Plymouth, seventh and eighth grade, and yet you're driving to Sheboygan. Now, this is really the same situation you were in last year. You were driving over to New Holstein. What are some of the challenges in that kind of a situation? Well, for the last four years I did that when I was at New Holstein. So I'm kind of used to some of the challenges. But the main thing is just time, just budgeting. Being able to and have an understanding staff that I work with at the school that I'm at, allowing me to leave maybe a little bit earlier. I do have to show up a little bit earlier, school in the morning, which can be rough if you're playing a night game. But just a time issue. Also, having to have to communicate with South Building on different things, announcements. And the staff there has been great. Coach Peter Koutzer, who's a JV coach this year, is on staff. And he's been wonderful. People in the office have been great. So it's just balancing everything out. And at New Holstein I had it down in that South. It's relearning it again and how they go through the process. Now, you mentioned before about style of play in that you're changing some things with the way Coach Kutman did it. What are your plans in terms of style of play, what you plan to install, and who do you see even filling some of those roles? I know it's early. Right. Well, being early, it's hard to say who's going to fill what roles. But it's going to be more of an up-tempo. People are on here to be more familiar with the Sheboygan Moore style. But it's different than that. Somewhat similar. We want to play faster. All of our games we'd like to get into the 65, 70-point range if we can, ideally 60 points. Trapping, full court, half court. Looking to run up and down the floor. Develop some three-point shooting. Those would be some areas that guys have to get used to. And right now I can't pinpoint exactly. I have one returning starter and I'm at Hemsing and you can look at him as being type of a leader for the team. And some other seniors. Jamal Johnson has been playing very well early on in practice. Mike Weber and Andy Lancer being a returning player as well. Kind of going with their experience. Matt is your lone returning starter. And he didn't do a lot of scoring last year. And I know that's going to be a key element. If you want to play the up-tempo style, who do you see as players putting the ball in a hole for you? Well, I think the guys that I mentioned, like Jamal Johnson has been shooting very, very well early on. His legs have been underneath him. Mike Weber as well, which I don't think he felt was a very good shooter last year. Hemsing has been doing it. Lancer, he has a little bit of the football going on in him right now, but it's so early that that'll go away quick. In fact, his practice tonight, the shot was coming around. So those guys would be the guys, the key guys I would look at right now are scoring some points. Zach Tuket was another one that's played well. And just randomly kind of think of guys. And right now we have 12 guys that have made the varsity team. One guy was injured right now, but I plan on playing like 10 of them at a time. And you just kind of stepped into my next question. That is, you know, when you play an up-tempo style, you're going to have to have depth on your team. And I think a lot of times parents feel like, well, my child isn't starting, you know, there's something wrong. But there's something to be said for kids playing minutes and playing at key times. Right. I spend a lot of time talking to the guys in practice about, you know, if being a starter is that important to you, I'll start you. But if I pull you out after one minute, what does that mean? It's all of a team type of thing. And if everyone's going to be able to play and get some minutes and get up and down the floor, that's the key point. And with our style of play is exactly right. I mean, you have to look at if we want to play that up-tempo where we want to tire a team out in the fourth quarter, we need 10 guys playing all the time. And by doing that, it allows playing 10 guys and playing up-tempo allows minutes for guys. Instead of sitting on a bench for six, seven minutes or a quarter at a stretch, you know you're going to be playing. You know you're going to be loose. You know you're going to be out there. Okay. Tim, I want to thank you for stopping in. All the best of luck over at South High. When we come back, Chris and I are going to wrap up this evening's program. So stay tuned. We'll be right back. Well, Chris, we've got all the interviews in the books now. Let's talk a little bit about our feelings on the upcoming season and some of the things that I had mentioned in the opening that we were going to talk about. Let's start off with some impact underclassmen that are going to be playing at the high schools this year. Well, I think there's a few. Andy Lancer, of course, we know him from the football season. He's over at Sheboygan South. He's a big kid. And he's one of those kids that's just a multi-athlete type player. He can do so many different things. I definitely think he's got to have a large impact for South to have any success this season. Watch for the super sophomores over at Sheboygan North. Timmy Schuyer, TJ Kellner and Andy Irick. They've worked a lot, very hard this summer on their game. And we'll see if those guys, first of all, make the club and then see their impact. They all have different roles. TJ is more of a slasher. Timmy is a shooter. And Andy is more of a banger inside. Some other kids to watch for a little bit, not necessarily in the city, but in other places. Andrew Zimmerman and Albert Usberg is one of the best players in the area. And Christian Wolfe is growing to six foot eight out at Kohler. Another tall wolf. Yeah, he's a load. We watched him a little bit last year. He's really worked on his game. And he's got a nice little baby hook. And he might really have an impact out there at Kohler. Let's talk a little bit about All City. And I think Andy Lancer was one of the players mentioned in the basketball Bible that came out recently. Who are some other players that you see possibly being All City? Well, we'll just go a little bit with what the Wisconsin State yearbook did. You know, they mentioned Matt Hemsing, who played last year with Sheboygan South. He's going to be one of the point guards out there. He had a very nice soccer season. Rob Canins, one of the returning players at Sheboygan North from that team that won conference and, you know, they've lost a great deal of players as well. At Christian, you have Justin Simmons. He averaged 12 points a game last year for them. So he'll be definitely an impact player. And there's no question, I think the player of the conference or excuse me, the city will be Johnny Decker. 20 plus points per game. And as Coach Decker mentioned, he's worked very hard on his footwork and his ball handling. So I think he's going to be maybe the player of the city. One of the things that Todd didn't allude to that I think is coming up this year and should happen, provided there aren't any injuries, John should set a new record for scoring in the city. Yeah. I mean, it's just, he's been exciting and he started as a freshman coming up every single season to play in. I believe he's taken light palm spot, right? That's right, Nick. He has the current city holder. So we'll see if, pending injury, if he gets it, you know he's going to get enough shots. Todd will make sure that. Let's talk a little bit about the conference races, Chris, and let's start off with the Central Lakeshore Conference. I know the basketball yearbook predicts Usberg and Sheboygan Christian. Second, how do you see it? I think, as I mentioned with talking with Todd, I think on any given night, teams are going to knock each other off. I really think that the upper five teams are really going to be tough and Howard returns a lot of players as well. I got to go with Usberg too for right now just because of their front line. They're looking for some guard play in the situation, but I wouldn't be surprised if Christian or Lutheran or any one of these other city teams to compete with Usberg. If they can get them going early, we'll see what happens. I think a big tilt will be that Christian and Luther game right off the bat. I was thinking too with Lutheran, they got the big horse and John Decker. You never know and he might go off for 30, even 40 points, and it's pretty nice to have that on your side when you're going up against a team like Usberg. Yeah, and they got a lot of size too. Let's talk a little bit about the Fox River Valley Conference. One of the things that was just almost jaw-dropped down is when I saw Green Bay West pick to take the conference this year. Yeah, I coach these when these guys are freshman. I remember they had a player named Orlando Anderson who's now a senior, and they were really tough. Boy, I don't know. That's another race that's going to be really close. I don't think there's any standout. Basketball teams are going to be heads and shoulders above everybody else. I think North will be right in there with the consistency of the program and the things they do over the summer. I would not take anything away from Manitowoc or even Green Bay Notre Dame to come out of there. Does South stand a chance of having an impact in a conference? I don't know if they have enough players to play right now in there. I think it's going to be a learning experience for them. I think Hemsing and Lancer are going to be definitely keys there. Let's take North. What a shock. I'll take North also. Central Lakeshore, you have Usberg. I'm going to take Sheboygan Christian, so we'll see how that pans out. By the way, I think Chris won out in the football predictions this year. I maybe should have went not with Usberg. First of all, Chris, thank you for joining me on the show. It's been great. I want to thank you people for watching. Stay tuned to TV8. We have a full schedule of games coming up with high school and college. Our first game is coming up. We can't wait to do it. Thanks again for watching, everybody. We'll see you down the road.