 Welcome to the 2009-2010 High School Basketball Coaches Preview Show. My name is Mike Martin. Joining me is a coach, Chris Wright. Chris, why don't you tell our audience who the coaches are this year? Yeah, we have all the same coaches that we've had over a number of years. We have Tom Destatelle at Sheboygan North and Tim Schultz from Sheboygan South and Todd Decker from Sheboygan Lutheran and Brett Flippsy from Sheboygan Christian. Brett's an addition from last year because he got sick and never did make the show. Yeah, that's true. But he had a nice season anyways. Yeah, and they're going to be tough again this year. We're going to step out and we come back. I'll have Todd Decker from Lutheran High School. For 37 million Americans, this is life, living below the poverty line. Find out what you can do. Please, don't let one more fall. Go to povertyusa.org and get involved. Joining me on the set is Todd Decker from Lutheran High. Todd, thanks a lot for stopping in. You know, you have practice coming up. Last year was not a very successful year. You finished up 5 and 15, 5 and 11 in conference. Talk a little bit about last year and what you need to change this year to be a better squad. Well, first thanks for having us on. I think you guys do a good job with covering the basketball. And I really appreciate that. Yeah, last year we had a down year and had some things, some injuries and some great issues with some kids that kind of hurt us. And we had to kind of go the young route. And that did the inexperience kind of hurt us. So hopefully that's going to help us this year. We got some nice players coming back and we're looking forward to something strong with JV players. So I'm really excited about this season and looking forward to it. Now, one of the things that I didn't have on my list, but we talked about prior to going on what had to do with recruiting and getting kids to go to Lutheran High. You had mentioned that the enrollment was actually down a little bit. Let's talk a little bit about private schools and getting kids to come. And what's your take on all of that? Well, first of all, if I'm going to recruit, I'm going to recruit for Lutheran High because Christ-centered education to me, that's very important. And that's my first recruiting that I would do. Then we add basketball and other sports and that would be great. But as far as recruiting a kid just for basketball, that's not what we're all about at Lutheran High. It's about that Christ-centered education. And then we want to help the students become Christian leaders one student at a time. Now, one of the things you mentioned about the enrollment going down was the economic times. Yeah, it's pretty tough. And we have parents that really give up a lot to have our kids go to Lutheran High. It is an expense, a worthwhile expense, having three kids go there myself. But there is an additional cost. And when people come in to look at it, that's just the way it is. But it's well worth it. You lost some senior leadership from last year. And most teams are led by their seniors. And as the seniors go, usually the team goes, not always. But how do you see your team this year in terms of senior leadership and who are you going to look for to provide that leadership? Well, we have a third year captain and Dan Salzbrenner. And that doesn't happen very often. And he's a guard and our point guard who's a leader and a great young man. We have Josh Walrich coming back from a pretty good second half of the season as far as a captain. Zach Blindo, our senior, will be giving us some leadership. And we're going to throw Sam in there, too. Sam Decker, my son, he was voted captain of the team. That doesn't happen with a sophomore. But I think the kids know he's played a lot of basketball. And he shows leadership on and off the court, too. Sam was your leading scorer last year. And what other kinds of roles will he have to take on to provide leadership for the team? Well, he had a good start of the year. And then we lost some scores. And we had to put a lot on his shoulders for a freshman. And he handled it well. We're looking for big things from him. He grew. He's almost at 6'6 right now. So he was 6'2 at the end of the year. And now he's almost 6'6. So we can use him in different spots this year. One of the things that's happening with the football end of it, and I'm not talking about the combination team, but I'm just talking about football in general with this region kind of a setup and breaking up some of the conference. Do you see that possibly happening with basketball? I don't know about our conference. I think it's more at the divisions, 1, 2, 3, and 4 for basketball with the enrollments and those type of things. I don't think the CLC will be affected that way conference-wise. But I see there might be some changes with enrollment and the private school part of it, yes. Now, right away, coming up, you've got a week of practice in, and I believe it's after seven days you're going to have your first game and you guys are going to have one right after seven. Don't get me going on that. Well, let's get going on that then. What do you see as a problem with that? And I know you've got Green Bay Northeastern Wisconsin coming up. Well, as a coach, and we can do the scheduling, with the type of scheduling we have, I wish we could have more practices before the first game, and we're going to change that a little bit up at our school and maybe start a little bit later because we need more time. I don't think that we have enough time. We rush the kids into things, and we do have a game tomorrow against Green Bay and New Luther and there are going to be some challenges for us. They've got two really nice players. But we've got to style up all the way to scrimmage against some of the bigger schools on Saturday and did real well and I'm excited about that. We saw some things that we wanted to do and it worked out. One of the things that a coach has to decide on every year is their starting lineup. You obviously have to do the same thing. Al McGuire had an interesting take. Once he established his starting lineup, he just kept it that way all year barring injuries and that. What is your philosophy on starting? I'm pretty solid with my starters. We think this year we're going to have some kids who love to bench as far as a spark goes. But I don't change up my starting unit very often. Maybe one or two things. If the kids aren't scoring, we see something or match ups. Then I might change some things. But I'm pretty good about the starters and staying that way. Let's finish this up, Todd, and talk a little bit about the conference. Christian looks to be like a real powerhouse. How do you see Lutheran fitting in and how do you see the whole league shaking out this year? I say this, but the CLC is really strong this year. We have from top to bottom. We have very dedicated coaches. They've been there quite long and that's kind of neat to see. Christian has a great ball club coming back. A lot of experience. Fundamental kids. Kevin at Usberg does a nice job. And Howard Grove and Cedar Grove has some nice kids. Coaches do a good job there. I'd like to pee up in that top part with those guys. I think we can compete with them this year. We're going to, our margin for error is slim, but I think that we can do a good job against them. But yeah, Christian, I think would be the team that you want to beat this year with all their guys coming back. So it'll be fun. We want to see where we're going to fit in with that. Well, we have you three times on the schedule this year. So hopefully we'll see, we got you twice against Christian. I know those will be tough games and then Ozaki, but it'll be interesting seeing your ball club play this year. Well, we like the support and having you guys come in and we're looking forward to the season. Thank you very much, coach. And good luck this season. And when we come back, I'll have Tim Schultz from Salt. Joining me is Tim Schultz from Sheboygan Salt. Tim, thanks for stopping in. I really appreciate this. Last year you beat North three times in one season. That doesn't happen very often. Whether it's the Northside beating Salt or vice versa. Talk a little bit about that experience and what it was like. I think it was great for the team. The guys last year, they weren't extremely hardy. They had a lot of seniors. Last year put a lot of time in. And some of those guys were younger brothers of guys who had played. So I think it's something that they can take as a badge of honor. But as we move forward, it's kind of as last year and get ready for the next year. Last year was really a great year. You finished up 17 and 7 and 11 and 6 in conference and you were tied for fourth place, which may not sound very impressive, but I think it really was that the conference was very, very strong last year. How is that experience last year going to help you this year? You just said the North-South games won't matter, but can the whole experience of last year help? I think definitely. One thing that a lot of people don't know is that when we got into January and February last year are starters, which we lost four for this year and coming into this year. Our starters were getting beat by our subs in practice. A lot of those guys and almost all those guys who were subs last year are all players this year that should step up and do some things on the varsity. So the experience of not only the journey of making it to the sectional finals, winning regionals, winning like you mentioned, those games against North doing well in the conference, I think it all ties in. I don't know how people are going to pick us. I don't think we really care. I think the guys are excited about a new season, about working hard. They're going to work their tail off no matter what. But I think experience will really help. I know not last year so much, but the year before last and the year before that even, I know one of the things that was much to your chagrin was not finishing games. You were in a lot of games and there were close ones and you just didn't quite get it done last year. Obviously that wasn't the case. Well, there's still games last year where we didn't quite close up the way we would want to, but it's something that we emphasize, especially the little things of making the free throws, even simple things like based on out-of-bounds, sideline out-of-bounds, trying to steal points here and there, and then just the composure and really, I think maybe the biggest thing is the expectation that you can win and you will win. And maybe hopefully we turned that corner as a program last year. You mentioned that you lost four starters from last year. Well, two of them were Peter Wolf and Hemsing, your two guards, and pretty hard to replace that kind of guard play. Yeah, you don't replace guys. Both of them played parts of four years on varsity and one Peter Wolf was a four-year starter. Hemsing was a three-year starter. They're all conference guys. You don't replace that. You hope that they left a mark. The guys who are coming up like Brandon Bernabe or Ethan Berlin, guys who were backups to them last year, that they can come in and fill the role that they did, but it's big shoes to fill. Are those going to be the two people that start at the guard position for you this year? As I look at it right now, I would guess so, and if they don't start, they're going to play a very prominent role. Right now, I couldn't pick a starting five. We had a chance to talk before we went on the air and you'd mentioned that it's a bit of a tough start. Jake Rissy won't play at all this year. He heard himself during football and Jake Ryder heard himself during football. Also, tried to play in your scrimmage the other day. Talk a little bit about him and how the team is moving along, even with the injuries. I can say definitely with the loss of Rissy. He did not play a lot of minutes last year, but we got him in and he had a tremendous summer of basketball, summer all around him with football and training, and had himself in position where he could have some great success this year. Now, Ryder, we think he'll be ready to go pretty soon. He's anxious to play. It's something where he's a three-year varsity player. Along with Bernabeal, we have two of them, and he's our lone returning starter, so we're expecting big things out of him. Who is going to move up from the JV team and be able to contribute this year? I know we talked about another player who's hurt and out for the year. Bailey Callahan broke his leg in football, but who else? Look at Riley Tudas comes to mind right away, Cal Blusky. There's numerous guys that would be missing. I could give you the whole list that I think all the guys could contribute, but those are the top two that come to my mind. You start the season this coming weekend. I'm not sure when this will be broadcast, but you have the Red Wing Classic coming up, and who are the teams involved in that, and who do you play first, and how do you expect to do? Teams in there are ourselves, obviously. Hortonville, who we play the first game, and then Old Creek and Randolph. And as far as how we expect to do, I mean, we have won our tournament, I think the last two, maybe three years, like to continue that. Randolph is one of the best D4 programs in the whole entire state, so it's nice to have them in there. We have Division I recruits. We played at the first game in Regionals last year, and so we'll just see how we do. Last year, Ashwabinon, pardon me, Bayport finished 17-0, and Preble was next at 14-3. You guys had an excellent year, like I mentioned earlier, 11-6. How do you see the conference shaking out this year? Where do you see your team fitting in? I don't know. Our conference is tough. I mean, extremely tough. The best team in the conference, I think going in, coaches would say it'd be Depeer. They're very similar to where Bayport was last year. They just have the whole package as a team. And then everyone else has just clumped together. There are no nights off. You have to bring your game all the time. You mentioned earlier about Manitowoc being very tall this year. Yeah, exactly. Manitowoc will be probably a four-starter, six-five and above. So there are no nights off. There's nothing easy. Well, we get you guys three times on the schedule. Hopefully, we'll follow you a little bit further when we get into tournament play. But Coach, I also want to thank you for stopping in and adding to our TV experience. Thank you. When we come back, Chris will be with Christian coach Brett Flipsy. Excuse me. Excuse me. Are you Santa Claus? I heard you might be him. If you are him, here's my list. Help the Marines make Christmas possible for less fortunate children. Donate a new toy to Toys for Tons. Santa Claus. Welcome back, everybody. I'm here with Coach Flipsy from Sheboy and Christian. A nice season a year ago. 22 and 2, 15 and 1 in the league. Thank you. Nice season there. Did you realize that you're 62 and 10 over the last three years? 77 and 16 over the last four years. That's just awesome, Coach. Any thing that's magical, or do you expect this, or the kids? It's always the kids. We always think we're all great coaches, but really when it comes down to it, you're only as good as the kids that you get. The last six, seven years, however long it's been, we've had some really, really good kids. The program has really skyrocketed because we've taken, you know, the older kids have taken the younger kids under their wings, and that's really what I attribute it to. The younger kids are looking at the older kids and wanting to play just like them. Well, that's just great. Also last year in the tournament, you knocked off the Goliath. Randolph has been the premier division four program in the state for over 15 years, eight championships. Do you think your kids now have the confidence that, hey, we can play with anybody now with that victory? Yeah, I believe so. You know, beating Randolph, you know, that was like getting the monkey off your back. We've been a very good program, but we've had to run into them, you know, every year for the last couple of years, and we've, you know, we've seemed to always lose to the state champion, and Randolph has always been in our way. They're a great program, and, you know, just by that win last year, I believe gives us a stepping stone this year to, you know, make another run. Unbelievable, yeah. You lost to Benton last year, too, state champions as well, what a strange thing that is. I see that you guys are, in some publications, ranked number two in the state, something probably new for your program. We've always been sitting right there. It's a nice honor, beginning of the year, but it really doesn't mean anything. It's all on paper. You still have to go out and play the games. You know, we could be ranked number two in state to start the season and have a hiccup early on in the season and drop right out of the rankings. So, you know, that's all, you know, pre-season stuff. You've got to go out and play the games. I think our kids are hungry, and, you know, they want to at least go back to where we were last year, with a very good shot at making the next step. Same situation right here in the county, too. It seems like it's always been, Uspurg has always been the team to pick. Well, now it's Uspurg and Christian. And, again, games against Uspurg obviously got to help you, you know, to build up for that, you know, successful years as well. You know, you've got North and South. You've got Sheboy and Christian Uspurg. It's a great atmosphere. Whenever we play each other, the gyms are packed. You know, my before-the-game speech is always about, this is what you play high school basketball for. You know, you have, you know, 2,000 people, 2,000 people in the stands. You know, some are cheering, some are booing, but it's just, it gets you ready for big games. With that a little bit, you know, you talked a little bit earlier about, you know, why things are successful. Your coaching staff's been together a long time. Continuity, other keys to success, you think? Yeah, absolutely. You know, in my first couple of years coaching, we were trying to find that right group, and I think we've got it now. And, yeah, we have been together for a while. Senior Dominant this year, that should help. Yeah, absolutely. We're going to go as far as our seniors will take us. Yet, we have some up-and-coming juniors, and they've got to show us that they're ready to play. You know, our seniors are going to take us as far as we can go, but, you know, when they fail, because there are times when the seniors are going to have, you know, some tough times throughout the year, but those juniors are going to have to step up, and we don't know who they are yet. You know, we're still early in the season, and we're still playing that out, but yeah, the seniors are, we have a strong group of seniors this year. Scrimmage goal, okay, the other day? Yeah, yeah, and those are always fun. You know, you don't keep score, you don't, there's no wins or losses, you're just working on what your weaknesses are. Well, for a long time here, just to finish up a little bit here that, you know, it seems like North and South has been on the Sheboyin County radar, and, you know, it's always, you know, Kohler had some nice success back in the 90s and stuff like that. I think Sheboyin Christian is a team that, you know, people in the county should come out and see you. There's been none of the radar, but I think it's one of those things that I think, you know, people should come out and see you guys play. Yeah, I don't think we're an unknown, but we are the smallest school in town, and we're just a lot of fun. We don't, we're not a team that, you know, sits and hunkers down and plays defense. We, you know, we like to run, we like to push the score, push the tempo, play good defense. Hopefully we're fun to watch, and, you know, if you all have a chance to come out and see us, that would be wonderful. You also mentioned, as we were talking before, you got a new gym. Yes, we updated our gym. We don't have a new gym, you know, a new floor, you know, and we lost our, our, the atmosphere of the old barn, but, you know, it'll be fun this year. I know when Coach Desatel changed over into the field houses, I thought it just kind of took the students away a little bit, so it's nice to hear that the students will still be there, but just the colors will be a little genuine. Yeah, it's not quite the field house, but we like it. Well, good luck this season. We're going to have you a couple of times, and again, thanks for coming in. Thank you. When I return, we'll have Coach Desatel from Sheboygan North. Welcome back. We're here with Coach Tom Desatel. Coach, last year you had a real fine player and Nolan Free led the state in scoring. Have you ever had a kid that was that high in the state in scoring ever? Usually I jump on him and don't let him shoot that much, but Nolan was special. No question about it. He's one that everybody kind of wants to have because he's such a great leader, and he does so many things other than just score points. Yeah, and the year before you had T.J. Kellner. So you had T.J. was a prolific score. You had Nolan Free, a prolific score. A lot more balance on your club this year. I think it will be. I think we're going to see that. I'd love to see somebody emerge and just be a first team all stator or something like that. I don't know that that's going to be possible, but we didn't forecast Nolan to be that either. We've got a lot of contributors, a lot of potential contributors. I came around practice and watched a little bit of some of your kids, and you look at David Britton and Mark Tuttle, and they seem a lot bigger, faster, stronger. I mean, they really look like they've really hit the off-season workouts. Well, you know, they're in the weight room year-round. They're playing sports year-round, whether it be basketball, which a lot of them are doing much of the summer, but they're getting stronger. There's no question about that, and you've noticed that in all sports. I'm sure in baseball as well. Yeah, and you do a nice thing in the off-season. You include the girls, too. You can even see the improvement in the girls program. I know they're joining you as well. Well, they're into it, and they're not going to back down. That's the type of female athletes we've got at North High School. We're kind of proud of them just as much. We're disappointed we can't see them as much as we'd like to. You've got, I believe, ten returning players this year? We've got quite a few. Quite a few. Devin Yerke came on the team for the tournament last year and played some, and everybody's kind of excited about him. He wasn't really on the varsity last year, but we have significant returnees. There was no question. Yeah, and he got a lot of experience. He got Tanner back, and Derek back as well. Yeah, Tanner, Derek, and David all started at one point in time last year. Jake Stengel was probably our best player outside of Nolan the last couple of games of the year. He went through an injury all summer. Then he was casted and really got the clearance just to play at the beginning of the fall football season. We've got Mark Tuttle as well. So we've got quite some competition for spots. Yeah, you do. Looks like Depeer looks to be kind of the class of the conference, kind of like Bayport last year. Bayport, for most people don't know, they almost beat Madison Memorial last year. Looks like Depeer's got kind of a similar type team. Yeah, Depeer's never been there. Kind of unusual. Bayport put together a couple of strong teams back to back, and Depeer is, on paper, the best. But like everything else, they had a strong freshman last year that's going to be out for part of the season. And again, how many losses like that can you suffer? But they are the team to beat. Yeah, I see too that the Boy State tournament is going to be before the Girls State tournament this year. Boy's basketball started a week before, not a week before, but two days before women's basketball. You're correct. The Boy's tournament will be one week before the Girls tournament. Both will be at the Cole Center this next March. Yeah, and that's quite a change a little bit for that as well. Do you like the new conference? Has you been in it now for a couple of years? It seems like it's a ragged 12-game schedule. Excuse me, playing all 11 teams in a 12-team league. Do you like that? It's different. You can like it or dislike it. I think you have to deal with it. As a coach, you say, look, this is what we've got to do. We play each team in our division twice. We play every team in the other division once, which is a more clean schedule than we had the first two years where we played an extra game against the other division. We played 17 conference games, which wasn't fair. I remember the old days we used to take trips to Jamesville and Wauwatosa, so you're limited on your non-conference schedule. I know already, you won't know this already, but they're already going to play Milwaukee Riverside early this year. Does that cut down on your non-conference? No, actually. Like baseball, like all other sports, we're playing 22 games this year. For the first time, all high school basketball teams have the opportunity to play 22 games on their freshman schedule. Again, we wanted to play a couple non-conference games before our first game of the year, which is coming up on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, and that's against Depeer, a team you already mentioned. We've got South the following Saturday, so we want to prepare for those. Yeah, I was going to mention that already. North-South came a little bit earlier this year, but we're going to have them in January this year, not in February, that's a little early, and it seems like it's been that way the last couple of years. It seems like you're always open with South quite early. Well, they have a schedule rotation, and they flip. Depeer moves to the top of the schedule this year. South is the next on the level, and so that's the way it goes. Well, we look forward to the season coming up, and thanks for coming in. It's always a pleasure to have you. When we return, Marty and I will be finishing up the show. We have a lot of practice and other show in the books, and we want to thank the coaches for stopping in. They always make this a really pleasant experience, and it adds a lot to the whole season for us. Yeah, I know, and it's tough for them too. I know they're trying to get ready for the season, get started for them to take out a little bit out of their practice day and things. It's nice for them to come. And it is a chore, because they literally do take time out of their day to come in, and most of the time they're either here right after practice or just before and running off to practice. Let's talk about the two conferences that we'll cover this year and make our predictions. Hopefully we'll do better than we did in football. Let's talk about the CLC. It's pretty much a lot in terms of who people are predicting, and that's Shiboy and Christian. But who do you see? I think it's Shiboy and Christian and Usberg. I know the Keller boys are coming up. They're a little bit bigger and stronger, and they got a couple of classmates over there. It can be tough, so I think it is going to be a two-dog race between Christian and Usberg. I think sometimes we overlook the smaller schools, but I think people should get out and look at these teams this year. There'll be a lot of fun. We're going to have them on our schedule a number of times this year. I also think Christian is going to be the winner. Matter of fact, I think they might be a runaway winner. I think the battle is going to be for second and third place with Christian, pardon me, with Howard's Grove and Usberg. I think it's going to be a really tough battle between those. They're going to see you grow in Belgium because they got a big guy coming back from last year. Let's talk a little bit about the Fox River Classic Conference. Last year we had a team, Bayport, won all the games in the conference, and I don't think it will be like that this year, but who do you see as being the champs? I think there will be a runaway, and I think it's going to be Depeer. Depeer is a lot like Bayport was a year ago. They lost by two points to Bayport at the end of the season in the sectional finals. Bayport should have made it and Depeer comes in and they are loaded for Bayer and a great team to watch. I think they come in on December 1st to Sheboygan North, and I think that team by far will be up there. I think Sheboygan South had a little bit of graduation. It's going to be tough to replace those guards, but they're going to be back again and much improvement by the big men over at Sheboygan North, too, so they'll be fun, too. And what about North? They lost Nolan Free, but... they're starting at UW Whitewater right now, and they're going to have to find something for them, so they're going to have a lot of balance over there, and I was over watching them shoot a little bit, and they got some talent. All right, with that, we're going to sign off, and thanks a lot, Chris, for joining me on the show this year, and we'll see you down the road.