Scott City Boys Basketball Preview

Conference: Scott-Mississippi

Coach: Mark Dannenmueller, 5th year

District: Class 3 District 2

Schedule:

Date Day of Week Opponent Location Time

December 1-5, 2014 Monday-Friday Woodland Invitational Tournament Woodland TBA

December 8, 2014 Monday Oak Ridge Home 6 p.m.

December 12, 2014 Friday Oran Away 6 p.m.

December 16, 2014 Tuesday Kelly Home 6 p.m.

December 26-30, 2014 Friday-Tuesday Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament Show-Me Center TBA

January 6, 2015 Tuesday Advance Home 6 p.m.

January 9, 2015 Friday Chaffee Home 6 p.m.

January 12, 2015 Monday Portageville Away 6 p.m.

January 13, 2015 Tuesday Delta Away 6 p.m.

January 17, 2015 Saturday Clarkton Three Rivers College TBA

January 19-23, 2015 Monday-Friday Scott-Mississippi Conference Tournament Oran TBA

January 26, 2015 Monday Leopold Home 6 p.m.

January 30, 2015 Friday Perryville Home 6 p.m.

February 3, 2015 Tuesday Saxony Lutheran Home 6 p.m.

February 6, 2015 Friday East Prairie Away 6 p.m.

February 10, 2015 Tuesday Egyptian (Tamms, Ill.) Home 6 p.m.

February 12, 2015 Thursday Zalma Away 6 p.m.

February 13, 2015 Friday Senath-Hornersville Away 6 p.m.

February 17, 2015 Tuesday Scott County Central Away 6 p.m.

Roster:

No. Player Year Height

1 Dylan Keller 10 5'11

2 Brennen Job 12 5'9

3 Trent Pobst 11 6'0

10 Drew Short 11 5'9

11 Austin Spriggs 11 6'3

21 Nick Bickings 11 5'8

22 Isiah Berry 11 6'1

23 Jordan Kluesner 11 6'1

24 Brock Uelsmann 12 6'0

32 Ty Wilthong 10 6'1

33 Braden Cox 10 6'2

34 Caden Hillemann 10 5'8

50 Tyler Rogers 12 6'2

Returning starters: Trent Pobst, Isiah Berry, Brock Uelsmann, Dylan Keller, Braden Cox

Starters lost: None

Last year's record: 8-16

Postseason result: Lost to Clearwater 69-37 in a district quarterfinal

Last year's leaders:

Points: Trent Pobst (15 ppg)

Rebounds: Brock Uelsmann (6 rpg)

Assists: Pobst (4 apg)

Team outlook

The Scott City boys basketball team returns an abundance of players this season, including all five starters from a year ago, who are stronger, faster and better prepared to match up against opponents on a game-by-game basis.

The challenge for fifth-year coach Mark Dannenmueller is getting his players to understand just how much they've improved.

"Right now we're fighting the fact that like everybody's gotten bigger, faster and stronger for us and they're more athletic," Dannenmueller said. "*... They don't know that they're that athletic and that strong because they're used to last year kind of being on the other end of that. That's the biggest thing right now is trying to get them to understand, 'It's OK. You're athletic enough to make that play.' That'll come once they get more confidence."

While he knows summer success doesn't always translate to wins during the regular season, Dannenmueller believes racking up wins in the offseason helped his players begin to "trust" their abilities.

"Our mental toughness has gotten a lot better, and I think that stems from having the confidence to be able to compete with somebody," Dannenmueller said. "In the summer we won some close games. Somebody would hit us with a run in the summer and last year that's when we got beat. We played some good teams and had teams down in the fourth quarter and they hit us with that little 6 or 7-0 spurt and we didn't know how to respond because we had never been there before. We had that happen to us in the summer a few times, and we did a pretty good job of responding."

The Rams will continue to play an up-tempo style on offense to utilize their talented guards, led by junior point guard Trent Pobst who is entering his third year on the varsity squad, as well as their athletic-but-undersized interior players.

Dannenmueller hopes his team can return to his preferred style of defense this season.

"This year we've done nothing but man-to-man stuff," he said. "Last year we didn't play any man-to-man just because we couldn't match up physically with anybody on a nightly basis. We really worked on our man-to-man. I hope we're going to be better at it."

District outlook

Perennial Class 3 power Charleston will join District 2 this season in place of St. Pius X of Festus, who moved to District 3.

"The bottom line is you've got to beat good teams at the end of the year," said Dannenmueller, who led his alma mater to a district title in 2012. "It doesn't really matter if it's a Charleston, if it's one of those teams up north, whatever the case may be."

Dannenmueller said he hasn't spent much time thinking about potential district matchups, but he is grateful that the Rams will host the tournament for the next two years.

"We're pretty thrilled because I think this is the first time ever that we've hosted the district for boys basketball, so our kids are excited," he said. "We're excited."

Looking back

Scott City finished 8-16 last season with two freshmen, four sophomores and four juniors on its roster.

"We still do things where I see the youth in them, but I've also seen them do some things that I know we could've never even dreamt of doing last year, and I know that's just being more mature," Dannenmueller said. "We're a year older, but still overall we're a fairly young team as far as experience. ... I think last year, even though at times it was hard, I think it was a good thing for us to get that experience because we were able to compete against some quality teams. We just always had one quarter that kind of came back to bite us. It's not an excuse, but I thought the youth really played into that at times, and sometimes we were just outmatched."

-- Rachel Crader