CEDAR RAPIDS – As you sit here on the eve of the 2023-24 season, Cedar Rapids Kennedy has a good boys’ basketball team.
The Cougars will tell you that. Common sense tells you that.
But is it as good or (gasp) better, than last season’s team? Can’t go that far.
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Yet.
“Right now we’re not better,” said Kennedy’s Cyrus Courtney. “But for sure we have potential. Everybody can play. We can go deep into the playoffs.”
“We might not get off to the blazing start we did last year offensively,” said Cougars head coach Jon McKowen. “But we’ll be really good by the end of the year.”
And really motivated all year.
Kennedy won its first 22 games last season, the first team in school history to go through the regular season unbeaten. The majority of those 22 victories were of the blowout variety, too.
But Pleasant Valley stunned the Cougars and virtually everyone else with a 57-45 win in the quarterfinals of the Class 4A state tournament. No title for a team that sure looked poised to get one.
Not even a semifinal appearance.
“I think maybe we were too focused on the next game, or whatever,” said Kennedy’s Micah Schlaak. “(We learned) never underestimate a team. Just because we think we’re the best, anyone can knock you off.”
“It just stung,” Courtney said. “We should have gone way deeper … But you can’t do anything about it except now.”
Courtney (9.4 points, 6.3 rebounds, 2.9 steals, 2.7 assists per game) and Schlaak (12.3 points, 7.0 rebounds per game) are the two returning starters for the Cougars. Trey McKowen, Trevan Krumrei, Landon Dieters and Griffin Gerdes played a lot last season and will help a lot.
So will transfers Joe Bean, Rashad Gatewood and Marty Blakey. Bean was a first-team all-state guard last season for Cedar Rapids Xavier, which made it to the 3A state championship game.
Gatewood and Blakey come in from Cedar Rapids Jefferson.
“They play really hard. They’re smart,” Bean said, when asked what he has noticed about his new team. “On the defensive side, they really like that side. They like to play defense and push the ball (offensively). It’s just a good environment.”
“We’re different,” McKowen said. “We don’t have as much experience coming back all the way through. With some new pieces, it has kind of allowed to start over. We want to be basic and really make sure we are good at some simple stuff first, then move on. When we get out there and start playing, there are a lot of really talented basketball guys. Big, athletic, can do stuff.”
Of course, it’ll be difficult to replace two all-state players in guards Kenzie Reed and Colby Dolphin. Reed was at Upper Iowa University, but is looking now at a junior college, Dolphin is at Kirkwood Community College.
As McKowen said, this Kennedy team might not be as prolific from 3-point range as last year’s group. It has good size and can use it.
But it’s going to play uptempo as usual and pressure you coming off the bus as usual. Those are Cougars staples.
“I think we have the pieces for sure,” Schlaak said. “Obviously losing two all-state guards is going to be different. But I would argue we gained two guards in Joe and Trey, who are stepping up. So I don’t think we’re losing, like, scoring and stuff like that. I think we should be as good, if not better, than last year.”
Scary, right?
“I told the guys I would never trade (last) season for that last game,” Coach McKowen said. “It was such a fun season, a successful season. We just didn’t shoot the ball at the wrong time. That happens, you want it to happen in the middle of the season and not at the end at a pivotal point. But PV was a good team, too.
“I think all that stuff definitely helps motivate you. We had a great offseason. We’re looking forward to another good group.”
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