The Hampton-Dumont-CAL boys basketball team is 2-4 and 1-2 in the North Central Conference at the Christmas break. In the final week of games of December, they went 0-3 with losses to Humboldt, #1 (1A) St. Edmond and Saint Ansgar.
“It’s a tough week after you go 2-0 the week before, and then he come out this week, and we knew all three teams are good teams, they’re all above .500,” Head Coach Matt Lokenvitz says. “Humboldt I think has only lost one game and St. Ed’s hasn’t lost anything and St. Ansgar is good team. So we knew it was going to be tough. We knew that we’re still new to our system changes. We’re still new with trying to find the roles that everybody’s going to play and do those things. But some of those, they’re kind of heartbreakers a little bit when you’re like, man, I think I still think we were the better team on that night, we just didn’t quite get the job done.”
Brady Harr leads the team with 18.7 points and 11.2 rebounds per game on 57 percent shooting. Caden Woods has connected on 58 percent of shots, scoring nine points per game.
With plenty of practice time available before their next game, Lokenvitz says pressure defense and performing at a high level for all 32 minutes will be key areas of focus.
“We want to try to make it uncomfortable for the offense that we’re going up against. And right now, the offenses seem really comfortable. We’re really not pressuring the ball like we would like. We’re really not in the passing lanes like we would like. We don’t really have much help on the help side defense. Brady Harr down low is a 6’8″ post player that he’s gonna deter a lot of shots and they’re gonna try to shoot up over the top of him. So we’re trying to get our guards to realize that a little bit to say, hey, let’s get out a little bit. Let’s try to make it uncomfortable. And if they’ve got to put the ball on the floor and be uncomfortable, we have a better chance. And many times that you can cross them over or get them to turn from side to side, then you have a better chance of them just dribbling it off their foot or leaving it out there so you can get a steal or picking it up because they’re uncomfortable with their left hand.”
They’ll resume the season Monday, January 5 at North Butler.
