Dubuque- Area Basketball Preview on 10/7

[EastIowaHawk]

The annual Dubuque Builders/Bank area prep 2015- 2016 basketball preview will be Tuesday evening, October 7, at Happy's, hosted by Gary Dolphin. The preview will include team summaries by head coaches at Wahlert, Senior, Hempstead, Western Dubuque and East Dubuque. Last season, all five teams were in the Iowa and Illinois top ten at various times in their classes. I'll try to post a summary after the event.

 

[LukeFeddersen]

The annual Dubuque Builders/Bank area prep 2015- 2016 basketball preview will be Tuesday evening, October 7, at Happy's, hosted by Gary Dolphin. The preview will include team summaries by head coaches at Wahlert, Senior, Hempstead, Western Dubuque and East Dubuque. Last season, all five teams were in the Iowa and Illinois top ten at various times in their classes. I'll try to post a summary after the event.

Always such a cool thing. I wish more areas did something similar. Would love a summary.

 

[EastIowaHawk]

Okay- Gary Dolphin introduced the five local high school basketball coaches to an attentive crowd and also gave his predictions regarding the Hawkeyes. Dub. Hempstead coach Curt Deutsch reviewed last year and said they would be rebuilding this year with only one senior starter (Ryan McDonough) and several underclassmen starters from the successful soph and freshman teams. No great height, but the young Duax boy will be a 6-4 or 6-5 starting guard. He, and the others all said that the top four MVC teams would be IC West, Wahlert, Linn Mar and Cedar Falls. Western Dubuque Coach Dennis Geraghty's Bobcats, who have won several Wamac East titles, will have only one returning starter, but a tremendous soph-freshman class will pick up the slack, including Justin Lake, the younger brother of the former all-stater. They will be the smallest school in 4A, but most likely will drop to 3A after this year. Dubuque Senior Coach Wendell Eimers talked about the loss of Luke McDonnell, who is now at UNI with Western Dubuque's Spencer Haldemann. Senior also lost Jayden Davis, a returning senior starter, whose family moved from Dubuque. The Rams will rebuild this year, with Dimitri Humpel Griffin and soph phenom Justin Blackmon, who averaged ten points a game last year as a freshman for the varsity. The Rams have a particularly strong freshman-soph group and may start freshman Nick Timmerman at the three. Senior is in a definite rebuilding mode. The one local team that is not completely rebuilding is Dub. Wahlert, which returns three starters and most of the top reserves from last year's team. Coach English talked about how they will miss guards/forwards .Nolan Timp and Josh Carter, both IHSAA all-tournament team performers. Guard David Wedewer was singled out as the hardest working player and the floor leader. 6-6 guard-forward Riley Till could be the surprise player for Wahlert as he's been a leading scorer for the Golden Eagles in the off-season and will fill the role left by Carter and Timp. All-stater Cordell Pemsl is practicing and hopes to be ready for action at the start of the season if he is cleared to play. Coach English said that senior leaper David Iwowari is improving steadily and will have a bigger role this year as a starter. 6-7 senior transfer Sage Maiers has a serious ankle sprain and is currently not practicing. He also needs to get in better shape because of another injury earlier, which has left him with markedly diminished playing time the last several months. Coach English expects much playing time and help from 6-6 forward John Timmerman and guards Josh Schmitt and Austin Kluck. East Dubuque, which won 29 games last year, is rebuilding. So-- an entertaining evening, but no great surprises or announcements.