Iowa Lakes Basketball Preview

By Mitchell Hagenson, Staff Writer

As one semester comes to an end at Iowa Lakes Community College, another new semester begins. This next semester has so many things to look forward to. Things like the annual show/jazz choir festival hosted by the Iowa Lakes Music Department to seeing the broadcasters setup a live version for the people at home to watch the events going on at the college to especially seeing the Iowa Lakes athletes compete for the sport they love to play in the winter/spring season. There are so many other things to look forward to when it comes to planning for the spring semester, but to talk about one sport in particular, it would have to men’s basketball.

Troy Larson, who is the head men’s basketball coach at Iowa Lakes would talk about his and his entire team’s journey from not being able to continue last year’s basketball season due to the coronavirus to dealing with what has been going on in the world today not just by himself, but as a team to dealing with having the winter sports pushed back till January.

“It’s been an interesting past couple of months that’s for sure,” said Larson. “We were fortunate to get beaten out of the tournament on the week before every got shut down. I felt bad for DMACC, because they had beaten us in the regional semifinals, so they qualified for the national tournament and I felt bad for them that they couldn’t attend, because they canceled the national tournament due to what’s going on in our world today. It was the obviously the right decision to do especially with what’s going on in our world, but you feel bad for the student athletes who aren’t able to participate at the highest level especially when you’ve earned a spot their,” said Larson.

“Overall we had a really good season last year 26-6,” said Larson. “We lost our first two games of the year and went 26-4 in our last thirty games. We improved throughout the course of the year and we were right there. I think DMACC would’ve had a great chance of winning a national championship and I think that we were definitely at their level. I think we would’ve had a chance to win a national championship as well, so I’m very happy with last year’s season. I was very pleased to how our guys competed overall last year. It was definitely weird in the fact that when you normally take a couple of weeks off in late March and the first part of April and then you get back to and then you got about a 6-8 week period to work guys out and to get back in the weight room to get stronger. With all of the places being shut down, it was a trying time for our student athletes.” said Larson.

Dillon Carlson, who is a current sophomore on the Iowa Lakes basketball team would talk what has been the biggest challenge for them as a team when it comes preparing themselves for the season.

“One of the biggest challenges of this years season is staying focused during the pre season,” said Carlson. “We have so much time to practice without any games so sometimes it can be hard to focus as a team day in and day out. But when January comes around that won’t be an issue anymore,” said Carlson.

Carlson would then compare this year’s season to last year’s season when it comes preparing themselves for the games this season.

“Last season we had a lot of sophomores on the team that had experience playing college basketball which made the game a lot easier playing as a freshman,” said Carlson. “This season we have a lot of freshman and only a few returners so that would be the main difference. Also we have fewer games this season so that will be different,” said Carlson.

Larson would then continue to talk about the new freshmen and returning sophomores that they have representing the men’s Iowa Lakes basketball team this year.

“We have a great group of sophomores returning this year on our team and that group starts with Keshawn Pegues,” said Larson. “He is our teams first all region performer from last year and he lead our region and rebounding and he’s just had a great fall semester where you can tell he is a better performer than he was last year. We have Kevin Cook who has vastly improved from last year and he has just improved himself to being a better player. Dillon Carlson who returns on the perimeter and he’s one of the better shooter’s that I’ve ever coached. He really really shoots it and he’s gotten a lot better last year too. We also have a transfer player on our team by the name of Xzavier Jones and he’s great defender to have on our team too,” said Larson.

“We have some really good freshmen on our team,” said Larson. We have Ryan Hall who is a 6’5 guard out of Ohio and he’s a really good smart, intelligent kid to have on our team. Caleb Johnson, who is a combo guard and not to mention a really fast kid. He’s had some really good scores at our scrimmages and practices. Ozzie Meiborg is a great player that they had in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, plus his dad use to play for the basketball team here, so it’s always good to see the tough nose, hard heart spirit that his dad use to have for this team. Joseph Owens and Johnathan Oden who are two really athletic athletes just like Keshawn is and finally not to forget, Colten Schutt who is a really tough hard hitting athlete who shows a lot of heart when we are in our practices and scrimmages. We have a lot of length compared to last year’s team, but those are the guys that we all believe will be core players for us,” said Larson.

Carlson would then continue to talk about what are some of the short and long term goals for the team this year.

“Short term goals and long term goals are pretty much the same for us, we try to get better each day as a team and the overall goal is to always win a championship,” said Carlson. “I think that is always the goal when starting a season.

Larson would then give his final thoughts on the athletes who played on the team last year and to everyone who is looking forward to this year’s men’s basketball season.

“I just appreciate all of the support that we keep getting from everyone,” said Larson. “We are still trying to figure out the whole situation on if we are going to have fans and all of that stuff. We always appreciate the support and we’ve always had great support and we always try harder for everyone to give you the right type of team. We just appreciate everyone that comes out,” said Larson.

As you can see there are so many things to enjoy when it comes to Iowa Lakes men’s basketball team. We have new freshmen joining the men’s basketball team and we especially have some returning sophomores returning for this year’s men’s basketball team too. The first game that they have is on January 20th, but they have not decided where the first game will be located yet. I can’t think of a better way to start the spring season then with some basketball.