After a week off over the Christmas break, the boys and girls basketball teams from Campbell County and Thunder Basin high school are back in action this week for the Hoop City Classic in South Dakota.
The three-day tournament kicks off Tuesday morning with games at the Corn Palace in Mitchell and the Pentagon in Sioux Falls.
The Hoop City Classic will be the third preseason tournament for all four Gillette teams to fix any kinks at the start of the season before the conference kicks off on January 21st.
Bolts Boys without All-State Shooting Guard McKale Holte
The Thunder Basin guys will be a little understaffed for the next month or so after State Senior Guard McKale Holte broke his ankle during practice last week. TBHS coach Rory Williams assumes that Holte will be available again next month for the conference opener against Kelly Walsh.
The Bolts were unanimously voted the # 1 team in Class 4A on the WyoPrep.com coach and media basketball preseason rankings and have maintained # 1 for the first two weeks of the season.
Thunder Basin (5-1) with 68.7 points per game is tied with Kelly Walsh in first place in class 4A and outperforms the opponents by more than 26 points per game.
Bolts are also number 1 in terms of field goals (51%), 3-pointers per game (11.7) and 3-pointer shot percentage (40.2%).
Thunder Basin will miss Holte’s jump shot at the Hoop City Classic as the senior ranks 7th in the state with 15.5 points per game. Holte also leads the state in 3-pointers made in a nine game against Evanston earlier this month.
The Bolts will rely more on their fellow all-state guard, Senior Deegan Williams, who is second on the score with 22.2 points per game. Deegan also leads the state with 7.8 assists and 4.7 steals per game.
On the other side of the ball, Thunder Basin is # 1 in defense with 42 points allowed and 14.8 steals per game.
The Bolts have had a 3-0 weekend at the Flaming Gorge Tournament in Rock Springs and Green River and will face four tough opponents this week. Thunder Basin will begin the tournament against the First Assembly Christian School (7-1) from Memphis, Tennessee, in Mitchell on Tuesday lunchtime.
The Bolts play twice on Tuesday and end the day with a 7:30 p.m. matchup with Mitchell (3-0) at their home gym.
Thunder Basin will also play against Houston, Tennessee (7-6) on Wednesday at 2 p.m. and against Brandon Valley of South Dakota (0-3) at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday. Both games take place in Sioux Falls.
Young camel girl team are still putting things together
The preseason was all about creating a new identity for the Campbell County’s girls’ team. After the first two tournaments of the season, the new identity shows the true potential of this year’s Camels under the new trainer Braidi Lutgen.
Campbell County (3-4) ranks bottom in the Northeast Quadrant on aggregate, but non-conference games will not affect March playoffs. The Camels used the first two weeks of the season to build confidence and team chemistry for a young team with just one senior.
In the first seven games, the Camels are number 2 in class 4A in the number of points with 56.6 points per game. Campbell County also tops the state in 3-pointers with 8.1 per game, while it ranks 7th in Shooting at 35.6%.
The biggest concern the Camels have to work on before the conference game starts is the defensive side of the ball. The camels are in 15th place out of 16 teams in class 4A with 56.4 allowed points per game.
Campbell County has two players in the state’s top 10 in scores. Junior Madison Robertson is No. 4 with 14.7 points per game and Junior Millie Crack is No. 9 with 11 points per game.
Freshman Erika Martinez improved early on in her first varsity season and, with 3.1 per game, is third in assists as one of the Camels’ most important point guards.
Campbell County will play two games in the Hoop City Classic this week. The Camels play Bridgewater-Emery of South Dakota (2-1) on Tuesday at 9 a.m. and Mitchell (0-3) on Wednesday at 3 p.m., both in Mitchell.
Bolts Girls seem to stay hot after the start of the season 1-2
It’s been a season up and down for the Thunder Basin Girls. After a shaky 1-2 start to the season, the Bolts responded with a solid 3-0 weekend at the Flaming Gorge Tournament to recover to 4-2 over the course of the year.
Thunder Basin went into second place on the WyoPrep.com Coach and Media Girl basketball rankings for the year, but fell back to fifth after the opening weekend. The Bolts moved up one place to fourth in the rankings last week.
Having been in the top two on both offense and defense for most of last season, the Bolts struggled to consistently score points after losing seven seniors from last year’s team. In the first six games, Thunder Basin ranks last in class 4A in shooting with 28.4%.
The Bolts are 10th in scoring with 43.8 points per game and third in defense with 36.2 points per game. Thunder Basin leads the state in rebound with 36.7 per contest.
Second year coach LeeAnn Cox by no means presses the panic button. Pre-season is the perfect time to find out what the team needs to move forward.
Having focused most of his training on defense prior to the start of the season, Cox has now switched to shooting and making plays to prepare for open shots.
After playing only a few minutes last year, Junior Laney McCarty has taken on a bigger role and is # 7 in the state in scoring with 12.5 points per game. Junior All-State Center Joelie Spelts is No. 10 in Class 4A with 9.2 points per game.
Spelz is also the second in the state to rebound at 8.5 per game and third in blocks at 1.7 per game.
Like the Camel Girls, the Bolts will play two games at the Hoop City Classic this week. Thunder Basin plays Mitchell (0-3) on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. and Brandon Valley (3-0) on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. in Sioux Falls.
Camel boys getting back on their feet in Mitchell
After starting the season 2-1 at the Power2Play tournament in Windsor, Colorado earlier this month, the Campbell County boys faced stiff competition. There the Camels went 1-2, including a 74-24 loss to the Colorado team at Fossil Ridge, which ranks 3rd.
Now the Camels are 3: 3 for the season and hope to get back on their feet with two games this week at the Hoop City Classic.
Campbell County is still working to find its identity after all five starters on last year’s team graduated. In the first two weeks of the season, the camels ranked 11th in scoring (50 points per game), 15th in shooting (36.6%), 15th in rebounding (22.5 per game) and 8th in defense (54.7 points against per game).
Senior Austin Crimm has led the Camels in the scoring so far this year, averaging 11.7 points per game while shooting 37% from a 3-point range.
After losing All-State Guards Luke Hladky and Jefferson Neary to graduation that spring, the Camels took a more balanced approach to scoring. The offense relies on ball movement and communication to ultimately find an open shot.
Campbell County still fires many 3-pointers, a long tradition in Gillette. The Camels have the top three 3-point tries in a game, including 41 tries against Evanston earlier this month.
As a team, the camels shoot 30.2% from 3-point range, an average of 9.2 hits per 30.2 attempts per game.
Campbell County still has a lot to do ahead of the conference play, but this year’s team has already made great strides in the first two weeks of the preseason. With the Christmas break behind them, the Camels are set to take another big step this week in South Dakota.
The Camels play Yankton of South Dakota (2-1) on Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. and Mitchell (3-4) at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, both in Mitchell.
Comments are closed.