Hard Work Region Preview: Michigan Goonies
Although it is still in the middle of the high school basketball season we are already looking ahead to the travel team circuit this spring. We will be previewing the teams participating in the PrepHoops Circuit Hard Work Region over the next few months.
Below is our chat with Michigan Goonies travel team program previewing this upcoming season!
Why did you start your program? How long have you been around?
We were all coaches at Joe Dumars Fieldhouse in Shelby Twp Michigan and one year all had some very good players so we thought “Hey” lets put them all together and go to a tournament. So to make a long story short we blew past our expectations and won a lot of tournaments that summer. So then we decided to bring all the kids we were coaching from various age groups and put them on their respective teams and then became the “Michigan Goonies”. This will be our 4th year as a true program.
What is the goal of your program for 2019?
Well this is a unique year for our program and this 2019 class we have, is the class that made the “Goonies” the “GOONIES”. We will be graduating almost 17+ kids from our program and our goal is to try and get everyone at least a look and/or opportunity to play at the next level wether it is NAIA, D-3, Juco etc. We just want our boys to have a opportunity to leave it out there one more summer so that as they get older they won’t have any regrets!
What is your program’s mission each year?
Our mission is always to want to be better than the team from the previous years and have a better record then they had when they were at that age! While also producing quality fundamentally sound athletes for our Local HS coaches in our area as we take pride in good basketball. We want to keep our are area competitive in basketball and compete throughout the state of Michigan against other schools and to win a state championship to bring back to our area.
Do you know of any players that will be back in your program this year? Who should we have our eye on?
Yes, we always keep our core of 5-6 players every year that normally come through our younger program to our older program.
Who to look for this year
17u- Trenell Payne (New Haven HS)
17u- De’Jon Gantz ( Warren Mott HS)
17u- Joel Knightington (Macomb Chippewa Valley HS)
17u- Ray Sumpter (Sterling Heights Stevenson HS)
16u- Nic Gjonij (Utica HS)
16u- Nick Olemeda (St. Clair Shores Lake Shore HS)
16u- Linden Holder (Warren De La Salle HS)
16u- Deandre Turner (Sterling Heights Stevenson HS)
Why did you choose the Prep Hoops Circuit?
We did the adidas gauntlet last summer and having a great conversation with Matt Reynolds we felt this could be a big thing for our program and Preps Hoops as we are growing at a massive rate here in our area as we have put 15 kids in school since starting. So we feel Prep Hoops could help with that even more while also bringing a strong program out of Metro Detroit area.