(Avoca) The AHSTW boys basketball team is 6-0 with an average margin of victory at 38.2 points per game.
Head coach GG Harris has been most impressed with his group’s mental approach. “Practice habits and the maturity in mentality towards the approach to the game has been phenomenal. You talk about it year in and year out about how we’d like to approach the game. Eventually you want to turn that over to the players to where they are doing that themselves. Whether it’s practice or a game they are getting themselves physically and mentally prepared to play at a high level and that’s top to bottom. Been very, very pleased with both the JV and varsity groups, especially those varsity kids. We have high expectations, but to reach those goals and expectations you have to do it on the daily and so far we are doing that.
Even though they’ve been winning big there have been different ways they’ve been tested and they’ll have some stout opponents coming up soon on the schedule. “Treynor kind of had our number last year and they had a nice defensive game plan. Other people have taken that and used it. We knew that coming in and are still working on that. I think any good team is going to force us to play in the half court. We’re just continuing to try and be more efficient in the half court and getting guys the ball with mismatches in places they are comfortable getting the ball with shooting or penetrating and then also where can we get those role players comfortable to step up so the load isn’t so heavy on those other guys that teams are keying on.”
The Vikings have a big three of Raydden Grobe, Brayden Lund, and Kyle Sternberg who all average over 15 points per game, but point Cole Scheffler has been another key element in the team’s success. “I have to give a huge shout out to Cole Scheffler who doesn’t maybe always get the interviews or stat line and stuff like that, but he is a floor general through and through. He allows a lot of that efficiency to happen on both ends of the floor.” Harris says, “He does an excellent job for us commanding the floor and getting the ball to guys where they need it.” Scheffler averages 4 points, 4.5 rebounds, 5.5 assists, and 2.3 steals per game.
The Vikings are scheduled to scrimmage Harlan on Thursday. “They are super athletic. They know how to play the game. Coach (Mitch) Osborn is arguably one of the better coaches that has ever been in Iowa. I’ve always looked up to him. We know we are going to be playing against good basketball. They are going to force us to play good basketball. We know we are going to get better regardless. We’ve always been like the little brother down the road, but we’ve got a lot of guys that have played pick-up or AAU or whatever with guys from Harlan so there is definitely some friendly competitiveness that is going to come out in this scrimmage that is really hard to simulate in practice. It’s something we aren’t going to take for granted and are looking forward to.”
They’ll also scrimmage Glenwood during break before resuming their regular season schedule against Treynor on Tuesday.
AHSTW coach GG Harris:
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