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Jul. 10—MITCHELL — At the end of last season, the Mitchell High School boys basketball team missed out on the Class AA state tournament for the first time in five seasons under head coach Ryker Kreutzfeldt.
In response, a sweeping reform to the Kernels' offseason programming has placed a new emphasis on challenging players and individual improvement.
Kreutzfeldt said he had focused too much on planning activities around when the most team members were available in past years, navigating schedules that included other activities, such as baseball or football, in addition to summer jobs. This year, he changed his approach by increasing the frequency of available team activities from skill work to open gyms, allowing players greater flexibility to find workouts to attend.
"I don't expect everyone to be at everything, every day, but there is something basically every day, whether you're available in the morning or at night, that you can be doing to get better," Kreutzfeldt said. "It's been a good summer so far, for sure."
Monday through Friday, the Kernels have some sort of basketball activity on the calendar. In addition to what have become standard offseason activities, such as league play and team camps, Kreutzfeldt estimates that the amount of skill development time has tripled to quadrupled this summer.
Also new this offseason is a set of statistics kept by Kreutzfeldt. During previous years, the coach logged how many shots players were getting up during the offseason, with a reward for players who reached 10,000 made shots.
Now that list of figures has grown to include attendance at team activities, open gym victories and more. Further, once per week, Kreutzfeldt posts the top-5 leaderboards for those stats to social media. As a team, Kreutzfeldt set a goal of 100,000 made shots.
"We want to build that internal sense of wanting to win whatever it is, and we're working that in with everything being competitive, every game in open gym mattering," Kreutzfeldt said. "It's very public, so there are no doubts about who's been in the gym. Did you put the time in or not? There's no opinion in that answer."
Having their offseason work visible to the public has added extra layers of competition and accountability between teammates.
"With the leaderboard spots, it feels really competitive this year," said rising senior Kyson Herrmann. "It gives you a sense of where you're at and how much you need to keep going. Even with simple stuff like shooting and getting shots up on the leaderboard, it makes guys go against each other and help each other get better."
At last update on June 29, rising sophomore Jett Krantz stood atop the program's made shots leaderboard with 6,666 by himself, nearly 2,200 more than his next-closest teammate. He's accounted for more than 16% of the team's nearly 41,000 made shots to date, and he has also attended the most team activities.
"From the start, I wanted to be No. 1 on the leaderboard," Krantz said. "It's a challenge when you see somebody ahead of you in a certain category, and you want to be the top guy. I think it really holds everybody accountable to be their best and try to put work in every day, and it has brought a different competitive spirit to the program this summer."
The first official practice is still almost five months away, and in the interim, several players have baseball state tournaments and a full high school football season to put their attention toward. However, Herrmann believes that the heightened level of offseason competition will help the Kernels pick up in a positive place when basketball season rolls around.
"We've got to keep the pressure on this year. I think a lot of us already have that feeling that we're ready to get going here in the summer, and this has helped create some momentum," Herrmann said. "So hopefully we can carry that through, and we'll be ready to go when we get to winter and that first day of practice."
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In response, a sweeping reform to the Kernels' offseason programming has placed a new emphasis on challenging players and individual improvement.
Kreutzfeldt said he had focused too much on planning activities around when the most team members were available in past years, navigating schedules that included other activities, such as baseball or football, in addition to summer jobs. This year, he changed his approach by increasing the frequency of available team activities from skill work to open gyms, allowing players greater flexibility to find workouts to attend.
"I don't expect everyone to be at everything, every day, but there is something basically every day, whether you're available in the morning or at night, that you can be doing to get better," Kreutzfeldt said. "It's been a good summer so far, for sure."
Monday through Friday, the Kernels have some sort of basketball activity on the calendar. In addition to what have become standard offseason activities, such as league play and team camps, Kreutzfeldt estimates that the amount of skill development time has tripled to quadrupled this summer.
Also new this offseason is a set of statistics kept by Kreutzfeldt. During previous years, the coach logged how many shots players were getting up during the offseason, with a reward for players who reached 10,000 made shots.
Now that list of figures has grown to include attendance at team activities, open gym victories and more. Further, once per week, Kreutzfeldt posts the top-5 leaderboards for those stats to social media. As a team, Kreutzfeldt set a goal of 100,000 made shots.
"We want to build that internal sense of wanting to win whatever it is, and we're working that in with everything being competitive, every game in open gym mattering," Kreutzfeldt said. "It's very public, so there are no doubts about who's been in the gym. Did you put the time in or not? There's no opinion in that answer."
Having their offseason work visible to the public has added extra layers of competition and accountability between teammates.
"With the leaderboard spots, it feels really competitive this year," said rising senior Kyson Herrmann. "It gives you a sense of where you're at and how much you need to keep going. Even with simple stuff like shooting and getting shots up on the leaderboard, it makes guys go against each other and help each other get better."
At last update on June 29, rising sophomore Jett Krantz stood atop the program's made shots leaderboard with 6,666 by himself, nearly 2,200 more than his next-closest teammate. He's accounted for more than 16% of the team's nearly 41,000 made shots to date, and he has also attended the most team activities.
"From the start, I wanted to be No. 1 on the leaderboard," Krantz said. "It's a challenge when you see somebody ahead of you in a certain category, and you want to be the top guy. I think it really holds everybody accountable to be their best and try to put work in every day, and it has brought a different competitive spirit to the program this summer."
The first official practice is still almost five months away, and in the interim, several players have baseball state tournaments and a full high school football season to put their attention toward. However, Herrmann believes that the heightened level of offseason competition will help the Kernels pick up in a positive place when basketball season rolls around.
"We've got to keep the pressure on this year. I think a lot of us already have that feeling that we're ready to get going here in the summer, and this has helped create some momentum," Herrmann said. "So hopefully we can carry that through, and we'll be ready to go when we get to winter and that first day of practice."
Continue reading...
