How Sun Prairie Managed to Stay Atop the D1 Field After Offseason Turnover
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For Sun Prairie, the road to the Kohl Center was preceded by an offseason laden with transfers, turnover, and turnarounds. Transfers and roster turnover gut out last year’s roster. Off the bat, the departures of Marlon Ruffin and Taylor Jansen…
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Continue ReadingFor Sun Prairie, the road to the Kohl Center was preceded by an offseason laden with transfers, turnover, and turnarounds.
Transfers and roster turnover gut out last year’s roster. Off the bat, the departures of Marlon Ruffin and Taylor Jansen set them back two seniors. And when Jalen and Kobe Johnson transferred to Nicolet in a move that was mostly out of the blue, they lost their top three scorers and a touted young guard in Kobe. Alec Schaefer would ultimately join the pool of graduates too, and his brother, Colin, would miss the larger part of the regular season with a bum knee.
Their extended losses consisted of five starters, 58.8 points per game, and a five-star recruit with high lottery potential.
Yet, a roster of players that were each one year removed from the bench punched their ticket to the most coveted venue in Wisconsin high school basketball. To understand their incredible rebuild process, I caught up with Sun Prairie’s Colin Schaefer, who gave a rationale for their program one-eighty and tournament run.
Schaefer acknowledged that things changed internally, especially with a revamped offense, as he stated, “we switched up our offense to try to get more ball screens so we weren’t so stagnant…and another thing is we are moving the ball a lot better and relying on each other not just one player.”
And he’s not wrong about meshing on that end. They were relatively top-heavy last season with just two players scoring above 17.3 points per game and no other player scoring over 7.3 points. This year’s scoring averages were consistent across the board, as they had four players averaging over 9.7 points and eight players in total scoring over five points per game.
He also added comments about gelling off-court, as he said, “We are great off the floor. Hanging out together off the floor every chance we get. We really stressed that this year during the off-season especially.”
Jeff Boos’, dare I say his legendary coaching adjustments, were another obvious shift from year to year. From Schaefer’s viewpoint, “he changed up everything offensively, adjusting to our different lineup…I think our connection is also much better this year as well.”
But with a new-and-improved team, there was still a resonating experience from last year’s success that quelled the nerves of the Kohl Center, as Schaefer stated to me, “It was more excitement for me this year compared to last years nervousness.”
But the one thing that wasn’t touched on is the improvements made by the individuals of their roster. Their entire starting five skipped over the “testing the water” phase to becoming legitimate collegiate prospects. Brock Voigt went from playing in five games while averaging 2.8 points to starting in every game this season and leading the team with 15.3 points per game. Delaware Hale stayed in the sixth man role, but he upped his scoring average to 12.7 points per game. Schaefer, who only played in latter half of the season, showed his potential as a healthy and full strength scorer. Rajai Williams, Alex Voigt, and Dawson Hughes also took huge developmental steps in their game.
If restocking their roster becomes a culture for Sun Prairie, not just one-year stint, then we’re witnessing the baby steps of a blue-blood.