Coach’s Take: Iowa Barnstormers 16U (Part IV)
In this final installment of “Coach’s Take,” program director and 16U head coach Greg Stephen gives his impressions of lengthy and increasingly versatile West Delaware power forward, Derek Krogmann. And also bouncy and skilled Dubuque, Senior forward Noah Carter. Then, he’ll make a case for this Barnstormers squad as the best ever Barnstormers squad. Well, maybe the best ever.
Derek Krogmann, 6’7 (West Delaware)
“He’s all-of-a-sudden really polished up a lot of his back-to-the-basket moves. And then over the summer he really started to add some perimeter stuff to his game as well. He’s going to be able to handle the ball some for West Delaware, and he’ll even be able to bring the ball down the court. He’s been shooting those 12-18 footers for West Delaware. I got a couple text messages from college coaches during some camps in June saying, ‘Hey, Derek is really shooting the ball well.’ That’s not stuff I would have heard last year. He’s gone from being your undersized five at the college level, to all-of-a-sudden a really nice four option, and making himself a potential mid-major guy. Whereas before he was kind of labeled as a low-major kid because he was undersized a little bit. I think he’ll do very well for himself if he continues to work hard.”
Noah Carter, 6’4 (Dubuque, Senior)
“I kind of had to rethink some of my philosophies this season as a coach because my two best shooters were my four men in our four-out one-in. Noah Carter and Trey Hutcheson were by far my two best shooters this year. We actually entered Noah in the 3-point contest down at the Hardwood Classic in Kansas, and he got what would have amounted to fourth-place in that. He can really stroke it, not just from the 19-feet mark, but even deeper than that. He’s got a great touch. The thing that impressed me this summer is he’s gotten a little more muscular and kind of leaned out a little bit, and he’s become a real threat to kind of rise up and dunk on guys. Before, he was dunking the ball, but he wasn’t going baseline and dunking on people like he can now. And it’s impressive to see the work that’s starting to show. I think he’s going to have a hell of a year at Dubuque, Senior this year. He might be the best pure scorer in the state Iowa who’s not named Joe Wieskamp. The college coaches will start to notice him as they see that progression that we saw from him, and I think he might be the next kid that gets a bunch of scholarship offers from this group.
Team Take
“It’s a really fun group. There’s a big argument all the time, and it’s which team in Barnstormers history is the best? And obviously Seth Tuttle, Wes Washpun, Josh Oglesby and Jarrod Uthoff, that team team was really special. And the Joe Wieskamp, Joey Hauser group as well. But this team has had the most success that we’ve seen out of a Barnstormers team yet, winning at the adidas Gauntlet, winning at Spiece, and doing some of the things that they’ve done has been really crazy for them. They’ve been a joy to coach, they really have.”