Semoball

SD BOYS BASKETBALL PREVIEW: Johnson to bring new look to Kelly this season

Head Coach: Fred Johnson, first season (N/A)

Last Season: 9-16

Postseason: Lost to New Madrid County Central in the Class 3, District 1 quarterfinals 75-43

Notes: Consistency is the one word that Johnson is bound to preach this season.

As the former Oran Eagle standout enters his first season with Kelly, Johnson said that consistency is the one thing he’s looking forward to teaching the most for a team that finished the season losing seven of its last 10 games.

Returning one senior (Devin Heuring), three juniors (Jay Noon, Drew Dirnberger, and Bryce Morgan), and two sophomores (Ty Powers, and Gavin Jansen) off last year’s team could help in that regard.

“That’s the most important thing when you come into a new program, you get them to try and play as a team, for one, and you got to try to get them to be a consistent team,” Johnson said. “You don’t want to come out and have a good game one night and then have a terrible game tomorrow. You don’t want to play one-quarter of defense and then three bad quarters. Take, for instance, if you can average, say 20 points a quarter, you don’t want to go down to 10, you want to stay in between that 20 and 16 a quarter. I want them to be able to have fun when they play, but also work.”

Kelly returns 41.9 points per game from last season, with Heuring (6.5 points), Morgan (13.4 points), Jansen (11.5 points), and Dirnberger (10.5 points).

Altogether, the current unit knows each other’s strengths and weaknesses after playing last season together and is something that Johnson added is important with his limited amount of time he’s seen his team play.

“I don’t know too much about the group because this is my first year here, so I can’t tell you who the newcomers are or anything,” Johnson said. “I think all these guys played last year except for maybe one or two on the JV team, but I think we got a pretty good nucleus, it’s just we have to gel together as a unit. One heartbeat. Right now, we’re playing decent.”

With a new coach, usually comes a new offense and defense to learn and try to figure out.

Johnson said that — defensively — his team is going to base that side of the court on who the opponent is.

“We’re trying to play some man; we’re trying to play some zone; we’re trying to press a little bit,” Johnson said. “We’re trying to do a little bit of all of it. There’s no in-particular thing we’re doing exceptionally well; we’re just working on all of it, trying to fine-tune it. One day, I see some decent defense from the man-to-man, and the next day, I see some decent defense from the zone. We’re trying multiple zones. We’re trying multiple presses and different things, and we’re trying to throw a little junk now and then, but it just depends on the boys. I can sit here and talk about what I expect, but until we play somebody, I won’t know.”

The same could be said on the offensive side of the floor, as Johnson pointed out, his team will lean toward spreading the floor out and letting the personnel work to their strong suits.

“Offensively, we’re trying to spread the floor out, trying to share the ball,” Johnson said. “I have some guys that can shoot the ball fairly well. I’ve got some guys that are mid-range shooters. I’ve got some guys that can shoot the three fairly decent. We just got to put all that together. Offense, we want to kind of run it sometimes, and sometimes we want to slow it down and get into a set offense. It just depends on who comes to play night-in and night-out.”

WHAT’S NEXT

Kelly opens the season against Roosevelt in the Riverbend Shootout on Friday, at 2 p.m., at New Madrid County Central High School.

DISTRICT

Kelly participates in Class 3, District 2 this season, with Arcadia Valley, Clearwater, Fredericktown, Saxony Lutheran, Scott City, West County, and Woodland.

ROSTER

13Mason EubanksFr.
5Brayden VolkerdingFr.
2Drew KlipfelFr.
4Jerry BrewerFr.
24Peyton MorganFr.
41Caden DunnFr.
22Drew SilmanSo.
23Gavin JansenSo.
1Joel McClainSo.
3Ty PowersSo.
12Rylan LemondsJr.
14Michael ShelleyJr.
21Drew DirnbergerJr.
11Bryce MorganJr.
34Chase GrayJr.
30Jay NoonJr.
44Bryce RossJr.
10Devin HeuringSr.

SCHEDULE

N.29Roosevelt2 p.m.
D.2Chaffee8 p.m.
D.10at Caruthersville7:30 p.m.
D.13Meadow Heights7:30 p.m.
D.17Scott City7:30 p.m.
D.18at Leopold7:30 p.m.
D.20at Woodland7:30 p.m.
D.26S.E. Miss. Trnmt.TBD
J.7at Twin Rivers7:30 p.m.
J.14at Oran7:30 p.m.
J.17Chaffee7:30 p.m.
J.21Scott Central7:30 p.m.
J.24Delta7:30 p.m.
J.28at Saxony Lutheran7:30 p.m.
J.31at Oak Ridge7:30 p.m.
F.1Scott-Miss. Trnmt.TBD
F.11Portageville7:30 p.m.
F.14at East Prairie7 p.m.
F.18Bell City7:30 p.m.
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