 Hello, everybody, and welcome to TV8's 2006-2007 basketball preview show. My name is Mike Martin. Joining me, as usual, is the coach Chris Wright. Chris, we have a good lineup of coaches. Why don't you tell our viewers where they're going to be this year? Well, we've got coach Schultz from Sheboygan South, coach Flippsy from Sheboygan Christian, coach Decker from Sheboygan Lutheran, and coach Dessertel from Sheboygan North, who currently is number 19 on the all-time winning coaches list with 479 wins. He's just five behind coach Rusk, who had coached in Milwaukee for an awful long time, so he's moving up the scale, so it's a pleasure to have him along. You're going to talk to him about that? No. Then at the end of the show, we're going to go through the conference races for the Fox River Valley and the Central Lakeshore Conference, and we're also going to talk about, Chris will talk about, some of the key games that TV8 will have on the schedule for this season. We're going to step out, and when we come back, I'll have coach Schultz from Sheboygan South on, so stay tuned, we'll be right back. Joining me on the set is second year South Eye coach Tim Schultz. Tim, thanks for stopping in. I know this is an important time of the year for you. Last season proved to be a real challenge. You didn't have a very good record. What kinds of things did you take away from that experience? What I saw, and obviously with just three wins during the year, I just saw how hard the guys would work. There was no give-up in the guys at all, especially with a lot of underclassmen. At times we had two freshmen on the team, a lot of juniors, six of them, and they just kept working hard and working hard and had positive attitudes through the whole thing, so I was hoping that this year would start off on a positive as well. It seemed like even from the beginning of the year, all the way through to the end of the year, you had a number of close games that you could have won, obviously most of them you didn't, but did you see a progress in motion as the season went along? I definitely did. I think a lot of those losses were just lack of experience at diversity levels, not knowing how to handle tight situations, losing games in overtime, double overtime, and I saw progress in practice and even in games, even though we didn't, wins and losses didn't show it. Now you had a great start this year, winning your holiday tournament, I think it mentioned in the paper the first time in 11 years, and you also unveiled a new style of play, you know, shooting a lot of three-pointers. Let's talk a little bit about your two wins in the tournament and, you know, about this change in style. I think two wins were important. You know, we look at one game at a time type of deal, but for the guys to start off the season strong, and I've said before that you can't ask for anything better than two in one after two games. And as far as the style of play, I think this, what you see correlates a little bit more to my style of the way I would like to be. I'm still at times trying to figure the guys out who the best three-point shooters are, if we can shoot anywhere from, you know, 20, 25, maybe possibly depending upon a game of 33-pointers. I'm fine with that as long as there are good shots and a flow of the offense. And last year, we really struggled with the guys to get them to play this way, but through the off-season they developed. What other kinds of goals do you have in terms of your offense, because let's face it, you know, you're going to live by this tree, you're going to die by this tree, because sometimes they're just not going to be dropping for you. Do you have something else that you can fall back on if that were the case in a particular game? Well, the general philosophy is that, you know, a three-point shot is something that we want to have there as a weapon. And if that's not there, we can look down and dump it inside. And I think as it happens, as we progress here and teams are looking at us, and obviously after the first two games we say, well, they can only shoot to three. Well, they have to defend the three that opens up the inside. And now we're trying to develop our post-players to be strong or be tougher inside and to be aware of the fact that, you know, it's just not a three-point shot. Get yourself strong inside, get yourself positioned, we'll get you the ball. And I think that's starting to happen. You mentioned in the paper about preparation coming into the season by your boys. What kinds of things did they do to get ready? I know you talked about a shot club. So talk a little bit about off-season preparation. One of the things I introduced right away the first year, and we only had one player that did it, is in the off-season it's 25,000 shot club. And that's just to chart your shots in the off-season from the end of the season to the start of the next one, chart how many shots you take, and the goal is to get 25,000. We had a number of kids this year that bought into it, and some of them went above and beyond, even 50 to 60,000. Beyond that, we had our open gyms. We played a lot of games in the off-season in the summer. You know, it didn't force anybody to, but through the option out there, and I really see a difference right away coming into this year that they really play well as a team. They seem to know where everyone is on the court. And I think, you know, after playing all those games in the summer together, you get a good team chemistry you can build up. Now, so far this year, Tyson Pitch and Jake Beterwolf have been key elements to your team. As a matter of fact, in the basketball yearbook, they're picked as pre-season all-city picks for our city. What other people on the team do you see as key contributors and, you know, how is the team meshing and all that sort of thing? And I know you're going to have to have depth if you're going to be running a lot. Well, I think, you know, Tyson right now and Jake get the most publicity. But if you look at everything, I think we can comfortably play, I think, without a problem. I feel comfortable going 10 to 11 guys. And over this last weekend in our two games, we played 12 or 11, actually, that we suited up. Played them all the games. And I'm comfortable in doing that. And to name certain guys, I mean, I look at my seniors as being the leaders. Another sophomore, or two sophomores, Kyle Rommel, who has yet to play and will play soon, and Chris Hemsing, who are also right up there, very strong leaders. And that doesn't take out Jake Schwartz, a junior, T.J. Crownes, Kyle Koenig. And I'm hoping I'm not missing anybody else. But I think they're really, they're all chemistry-wise. They're all, they're driven right now. When you talk about, you know, the outside shot, opening up the inside, who do you project as your post-players or is that the multiple kind of thing where anybody can move in there? Yeah, multiple. Right now, our main post-players that we have would be Nick Wilson, Andy Lancer, Jake Schwartz, Kyle Koenig. But we also like to move guys in and out. I'll have various, you'll see Zach Tocchetto play down in the post, Kyle Reuter, move guys in and out so they're flexible. I don't look at guys, pigeonhole guys would be you're a god, you're a forward, you're a center. I want them to be basketball players. We're short on time, Tim, but I want to get a couple more questions in. Talk a little bit about the Acuity Fieldhouse. What's always like it? How have the fans reacted to it? To me, it's just amazing. The guys are totally blown away by it. It's a great field, great field in there. It's excellent for practice. Basketball-wise, it's tremendous, but also it's neat to see because at 7 o'clock the community gets to come in and a number of people from the community that are using it. It's such an asset in so many ways for the community. And I'm glad that, you know, obviously there's a basketball coach that I can be in there and use it, but that the community has something that's kind of a jewel for the community. Okay, we only got about 10 seconds left. Give me your perception on the Valley this year. I know North and Manitowoc are picked and you're about the middle of the pack. How do you see this? I think it's those North and Manitowoc at the top and then a bunch of people chasing them and hopefully we're one of them to get over and sneak up on some people. Coach, thanks a lot for stopping in. I really appreciate it. You're a great interview. Good luck this year. And matter of fact, our first game is going to be over at the field else when we look forward to that. Stay tuned when we come back I'll be talking to you about Brett Flipsy. Joining me is Brett Flipsy, the head basketball coach at Cheboygan Christian. Thanks for stopping in, Brett. I know this is a real big night for you. We're taping this show, the night that you guys play your opening conference game against the Usbergs. So I really appreciate you giving your time. Not a problem. Got a great start of the season. You're two and all. And or some positives that you took from those two victories and, you know, what things did you see that you maybe need to work on? Some of the positives were that we're a very good team. We've got a lot of guys that contribute. We don't have a lot of one-man team that anyone has to stop. One night, one guy will step up. One night, the other guys will step up. In both of our wins, we've played very good defense. And that's what we're going to have to hang our hat on this year. We're going to have to play defense. In our conference, there's about six guys in the conference that are 6'6 or bigger. And we're just going to have to really play as a team this year and go forward with that. One of the guys that's been a key contributor so far this year and also last year was Tyler Veldkamp. I know you had a real nice game in that in your second, I think it was your second game, central Wisconsin Christian. What attributes does he bring to the team? Tyler is a nice player. Tyler is about 6'5 and can play inside-outside. He had two, three-pointers against, against Waupon in our last game. And it can just do a lot of things for us that he can bring a lot to the table. He can rebound. He can shoot the ball from the outside, plays good defense, very strong player. And we're going to need that, like I said. He's not a Division I basketball player, but he certainly could play at a small college. And he's got to bring that for us all year. You had a couple other guys, I know they did some major contributing in those first couple games. Nate, Rice-Catel, John Muirdink, and also Eric Jensma, they're all seniors. What roles will they play and what other players do you have coming off the bench and we didn't mention a fifth starter. So who are some of the other kids other than those three? Well, we're a very senior-loaded team. Eric Jensma and John Muirdink are both returning starters from last year. Nate Rice-Catel was a player that got some time last year and really has grown into a nice role this year. He's a guy that can really lock you down defensively and he really worked on his shooting and his upper body strength over the summer. And he's really going to be a good contributor for us. Like I said, we're a very senior-leaded team and eight seniors, they're going to all have to put forth a lot of time. Nate Mauck is one that, he's a little water bug out on the court. He's only about 5'11", but he's going to be everywhere. We do have three juniors that are going to give us a lot of time. One that has been starting early this year is Nacle Paddock at our point garden. He's going to see a lot of time. Joe Westerbake and also Brandon Simmons. One of the things, I read this in the basketball yearbook, I want to mention this and have you respond to it. It says, you mentioned that players need to accept their roles. You know, I understand that part. You need to understand playing in our system. Talk a little bit about what you meant by, you know, the part of it playing in our system. We are not a very slow-down methodical basketball team. We like to get the ball up the court quickly. But then again, we're not a run-and-gun team. Some players, you know, are going to have to accept their roles. Like you said, you're a defensive player and you can't shoot, don't shoot. But the guys have to play in our system. We run the ball up the court, we push the ball, we try to get easy baskets if it's not there, and then we set up a half-court offense. And so that's what I say in our system. We really try to get after you full court, not push the ball up the court and just play a, you know, no turnover kind of offense. You picked the finish behind Usberg, and I know you finished second last year. What do you need to do against them to, you know, not just compete but to beat them? And I know they got an excellent player in Zimmerman. What are you going to have to do to stop him? Well, it's kind of like playing with John Decker the last couple of years. You know, when... You're still in the next question. We're playing with teams that have outstanding players. You're never going to stop them. Zimmerman is a very quality basketball player. We can, you know, only hope to contain him. But you can't let the other guys, because they are a very talented team. You can't let those guys all score another 40, because then you're going to lose. What I want to do is really limit the touches that Zimmerman gets and play a very good defense against the other four. Okay, we're running out of time, but I'd like to ask you one more question. It has to do with the Central Lake. Sean, I guess leading into what I mentioned before about, they have you picked for second. How do you see the conference shaking out? And, you know, talk a little bit about Lutheran, because I know we got your game against Lutheran coming up the 8th of December. Yeah, the CLC is very muddy. We're picked to take second, but I think we could go anywhere from first to fifth. That's how many teams, I think, could jump up and beat people. The unknown is should Wigan Lutheran. You know, losing one of the best players in the conference last year, but they've had quality JV teams over the last couple of years. They no longer have a one go-to guy. They're going to be that team just like us. A lot of guys are going to have to step up. But you've also got Howard Grove, who has returned everyone from last year's team. Cedar Grove has got some nice kids, and some nice young kids coming up, and Kohler, with the size that they have. There could be anyone who could step up any given night in the CLC, and you could lose if you're not ready to play. Coach, I want to thank you very much for stopping in all the best of season and all the best tonight with your game against Seusberg. When we come back, Chris Fry will be talking to Todd Decker. Welcome back, everybody. I'm here with coach Todd Decker from Sheboygan Lutheran. Todd, you've had a nice run the last couple of years, led by your son, John. How much will he be missed, and not only that, how much does he impact your program from now on? Well, he'll be missed. I mean, anybody who can score and had the points that he had, we'll miss that. But we have some players, I think, that can take that to scoring and do a good job with that. It's going to be more of a team type thing, and we want to go up and down the court. So, it's sorely missed when a go-to guy has been nice to have, but it's also a new challenge for us, so we're looking forward to that. Yeah, because of your recent success, Lutheran now, you know, kids coming in, other classes, you know, A7 freshman, is winning now, you know, expected or a tradition now? Is that something, you know, that's what every program wants to get to. Is that what you think you got now? Well, I think we're there or getting close. Every coach wants to build a program, and we've been there for quite a while. One came with Nick Leipam and Ryan Sear, Jason Hasenstein. So, throughout the years, we've had some players, and hopefully kids see that in the lower grades and want to come out to Lutheran High, not only to be basketball players, but to find Christian Young Men. So, that's our goal, and the basketball program can help that out, yes. But I hope that we're kind of an established program. You add a little bit of size out at Lutheran this year. Yes, we have some kids that are pretty tall, and we're happy with that. They're kind of wiry, tall. They're not big guys underneath, but they're athletic, and they can really get up and down in the court, and we're hoping to work on that. And it's nice to have, and we've kind of been kind of lucky. When you see North and South, sometimes not having the big guys, but then we go over to the Usberg side and see the even bigger kids. So, yeah, we're happy with the guys we have. Basically, your whole conference is tall, so you guys kind of just blend in. You can ask some kids, Usberg has some kids, Kohler has kids. You do have a big conference. We're probably one of the smaller teams when you take a look at what Usberg has and Kohler, some of their kids, and Krishna has some really nice size inside. So, it's going to be tough playing every night in that conference. It's going to be a tough conference this year. Now, you sprinkle in some athletes. You know, you have, I know Taylor Porth, Porth had a nice game the other day, and Greg Rush and some of these other kids. So, you have a nice mix of talent there? Yes, we do, and we're hoping that as the year goes on, they're even going to get better. Maybe not as much experience as we would like, but we do. We have some things, and we have some bench people that can come in that are athletic. So, we're looking forward to some of those juniors to come up and help us. So, it's going to be a different look, but I think don't count us out. We're going to be competitive every night. Zach Heisenstein, kind of the kid you're going to? Well, he had a nice first game. He went 11 for 16, 22 points, 10 rebounds. Zach doesn't know how good he could be or can be, and that's what we're working on. He can be competitive, being a cross-country winning state all those years, and hopefully that's going to carry over to the basketball, and he's a great kid and hard worker. So, yeah, maybe the go-to guy, but we like having that in our sets and things like that, and hopefully he can help the other kids too. Yeah, nice freshman group last year too. How have they progressed? I think they did a really nice job. We had a transfer, a real big kid that's coming in. He's a little raw, but I think they can do some nice things, and I guess that's where you talk about your program. You start with that. We have some good freshman coaches and GV coaches and been with me for quite a while, and that really helps the program, knowing exactly what you want as a varsity coach, and those guys should get more credit sometimes than they get, and you know that from being a freshman coach yourself. One last thing. Usberg seems to be the thing. I know Coach Flipps, you mentioned that the whole league, but Usberg appears to be kind of on the top, huh? Yeah, they have some really good basketball players. You have a D1 player. They should be the top team. I love coaching against Kevin. He does a great job with his program, kind of measuring stick for us, and it's always a challenge. We battle each other and we go after it inside the lines, but we respect each other outside the lines, and that's what high school basketball is about, and that's the fun of being a coach. Well, thanks so much for coming in, and we look forward to seeing your team next week on the 8th. When we return, we'll be with Coach Tom Dessertel from Sheboygan North. Welcome back, everybody. I'm here with Coach Tom Dessertel from Sheboygan North. Coach, 30 years as a coach. First of all, congratulations, and secondly, it's been quite a ride. Well, it's 30 years in Sheboygan. The funnest years, that's the term that the kids use, funnest years were the eight years I spent coaching in Milwaukee and on playgrounds before that, so it's about 38 years of coaching. Let's talk a little bit about what your present team now, Coach. You have, I would say, a pretty young team yet, you know, you had a young team on the floor last year and you still have a whole bunch of underclassmen. I wish they would have grown and thickened out a little bit more than they did. They're still kind of frail by comparison with some of these other teams we play, and yet they really work hard and they're really interested in getting better every day, and that's all I can ask of them. Yeah. Well, you got 12 players on your team this year, and I kind of look at them and I've watched you scrimmage and done some stuff, and I notice they're all kind of like the same. You don't really have any first team all-staters, but you have a lot of interchangeable parts. In their own mind, they're not the same in their own mind. And certainly in their parent's mind, they know who's best. That's all right for the next guy, but they know who's best, but you're right, we do have everybody on the team can be a contributor this year. There's no question on that. We have an all-conference player. I think we've got to look at that. We have three starters back from last year. Fortunately, they're juniors, so they'll be back again. And last year, Alex Jordan, I think, started the first couple of games of the year. And so we've got a lot of athletes who feel they can contribute. Earlier, you lost Dan Stockdale with an injury. Looks like you need everybody to rebound because you're not extremely tall. That's not new for Sheboygan North and the new millennium. We've always needed that. And I think every team wants five guys rebounding. So we've got a battle for our share. Stress defense as well? We liked, I think, good teams, stress defense and rebounding. And if the shots are going in, that's just the bonus. You're starting four kids, Derek Deezing, Timmy Schubert, Tom Irick, and TJ Kellner. They all came from St. Dominic's, just so that was where I teach. But I guess when I'm getting to coaches, they're all coached by, I believe, Kurt Davis. I guess having good youth coaches is still important to both North and South. I think you can't overemphasize the importance of what's going on in the grade schools for our kids throughout Sheboygan. I'm sure Tim Schueltz would agree the same thing. As far as starting certain players, we really don't have starters right now. We played one game. And so we want everybody to feel that they're a part of contributing. It's really the finishers for any coach that matter. The guys that are on the floor for the last couple of minutes of a close game. Playing in a new gym brought a lot of new excitement, not only to our community, but also to your players, I guess, they're very excited. But it is nice for Sheboygan. It's a nice facility for Sheboygan. I told the people when campaigning for the referendum, and indeed I was for the referendum, that we do not need a new gym for basketball at Sheboygan North. The community needs it. It's time. And certainly the elementary school was a must on that. The public responded. They said, yes, indeed, it is time. But if you would have asked me beforehand, I would have told anybody that would have asked if I could guarantee you one more win with a multi-million dollar facility, I can't. I can't. In fact, we would rather play in the smaller gym. That wasn't what it was for. It was time for our kids to get home for supper. It was time for our community to have a place to host community events. It was time for a respectable fitness facility around Sheboygan, not one that competes, but one that works with the existing fitness facilities we have in this great city of Sheboygan. Well, finally, Coach, as normal, talk a little bit about the valley. I think it's going to be very competitive. You know, last year we saw a scrappy south team go up to Manitowoc and beat the eventual conference champ. Do you see something similar this year in 2006? I actually see Manitowoc as the front runner, and they just appeared to get stronger to me. I don't know if anybody can catch them, frankly. I see limitations on our own team every year, and I tend to let prognosticators like your partner pick out, but, you know, those guys have their right to do that sort of thing, and that's what they do. I have to take care of today. I have to take care of where we're going to be in a week from now, and hopefully driving that thing. We'll sit back and listen to what projections you two make, and that's the same every year. Well, thanks so much, Coach, and again, congratulations on 30 years. We really brought excitement to Sheboygan basketball and to our community. When we return, Marty and I will be back to close in. Hello, everybody. Welcome back. First of all, I want to thank the coaches for helping to make this show possible. They always give it their time, and are really great at the interviews. I mean, they really do a great job, Chris. I don't know what you think, but I'm really impressed. Yeah, they are, and like I said, we don't give them a lot of time. They get away from their practices and a couple of people have games tonight. You know, we won't see this regularly, but you're right. It's nice of them to take up their time. Let's talk about the conference races. First of all, the Central Lakeshore Conference. Well, I think the two conferences that we're going to talk about are completely different. In the Central Lakeshore Conference, I think it's going to be Usberg in a route. I just don't think anybody's going to have the teams that can compete with them like they have in the past, and I wouldn't be surprised if Usberg goes undefeated. Now, when the show is aired, maybe Sheboygan Christian beat them tonight, so things might be a little different, but I'll take Usberg. Because it also runs within that conference. Well, I think Christian and Lutheran and Howards will all be very good, and I know Random and Elkar Lake are not as strong. We'll see what Kohler gets to go. They're going to have to have some guard play, but they have big Christian Wolf out there. A friend from Sheboygan South, Mike Rank, has his work cut out for Motor Random Lake. Let's talk a little bit about the Valley. You said they were totally opposite. What did you mean by that? Well, I think there's a lot of teams that could beat anybody in the Valley, but I think, you know, unlike where Usberg is going to go away from it, I think there's going to be some upsets sometimes. I think the top two teams are going to have to obviously be North and Manitowoc, and because we're homers, we'll take North this time. But don't be surprised. Sheboygan South's got a lot of athletes over there, and, you know, they went and beat a Sheboygan South team, excuse me, a Manitowoc team up there, and most of their kids are back, so I think it's going to be a very close race. Coach Schulz, when we talked to him, he mentioned that one of the main things he's got to do is get his team prepared and learning how to win, and I think if they can pull up some wins early on, you know, that might really propel him up right into the Valley race. No question. They do, like I said, have the athletes there, but right now, let's give North the edge, but so Manitowoc's got some good ones, too. Let's talk about some of the key games we got on TV8. We've got a 15-game, actually a 17-game schedule within 15 dates because we do double headers for the North-South games. Well, right away out of the block, there's some big ones, because Luther and Christian play next week on the 8th, and, you know, it competes against North and Manitowoc. We're also playing that night, but we'll be covering the Holy War of the Shore as we call it, and the next week right away is North-South game, and so right away in December, some of our key games go, and of course this year we're going to do a couple Lakeland games. It's always nice, and the North-South girls' game will be just outstanding. North's got just a great run of seniors that have been there, and it's been just wonderful. Well, that's going to do it for our show this year. Thanks a lot for watching, and we'll see you down the road, and make sure you watch TV8.