Caledonia High School boys basketball coach Brad King knew he could count on effort from his young team this season.
“When people asked me about what kind of a team we’d have this year, I told them that they’d run through a wall (to get better),” King said. “But I also told the guys at the beginning of the season that they were capable of beating anybody and losing to anybody.”
King wasn’t concerned with wins and loss until March, and he knew he’d have to be patient throwing a group of players with very little varsity experience on the court with the kind of schedule he likes to play.
And King wasn’t about to ease up on the Warriors’ schedule because of inexperience. Playing the teams Caledonia has played all season — both conference and nonconference — turned the team into what it is now, and that’s pretty darn good.
The Warriors (18-10) have beaten the third seed and second seed in the MSHSL Section 1AA section tournament to advance to a championship game against top-seeded Goodhue (28-1) at the Mayo Civic Arena on Thursday. The game tips off at 8 p.m., and the winner advances to the Class AA state tournament.
The Wildcats lost their only game of the season to Winona Cotter/Hope Lutheran on Dec. 27 and have won 21 straight games since.
“It’s a really, really good basketball team, and there aren’t really any bad spots offensively or defensively for us to attack,” King said. “We’re just going in hoping to impact what they want to do a little bit and do the things we can do.”
A consistency amid an expected season filled with ups and downs has been the development of sophomore guard Grant King, the only current player with significant minutes during last season’s 29-4 performance that included a fourth-place state finish, has expanded his game to be a leader this time around.
“His role last year was a simple and easy as you could have as a freshman,” Brad King said. “Now, we were asking a sophomore to take on a completely different role, and Grant has done a wonderful job of listening and understanding that role change.
“It was a learning process, but the second half of the season, there has been a calmness that wasn’t there at the beginning.”
King is averaging 22.6 points per game and has made 51 3-pointers. He scored 26 points in Saturday’s 58-55 overtime victory over Zumbrota-Mazeppa, and eight of those came in the overtime period.
Senior Aaron Stemper has added 12 points per game and junior Jacoby Hammell 11.7. Hammell — the tallest regular on the court at 6-foot-3 — and Stemper at 6-1 have also helped a small team do its best in the rebounding battle.
“We’re tiny, we’re small,” Brad King said. “For (Hammell) to play the 5 (position) at 6-3 and defends the other team’s big, that’s something we need him to do on the basketball court. He has grabbed that role and run with it.”
