Five Thoughts: Rocori vs Big Lake
Rocori and Big Lake played another excellent game at the Granite City Classic and NHR was present to run you through our thoughts of the contest.
One. A future UND stud. D1 football player, well educated post, strong baseball hitter and first basemen, that’s Matthew Waletzko of Rocori. On the basketball court is one of the best talkers I’ve seen both ways. His post position is well taught and he works extra hard to get into defensive position at all times. Knows the offense well and does a great job getting position inside, giving a target, and catching to finish plays. Matthew is going to be a sports success because he takes coaching and uses that coaching to give his size the advantage. Matt had a double-double of 15 points and 11 rebounds.
Two. Nagorski the Three. Wondering why you are hearing so much about Big Lake 2019 Logan Nagorski as a prospect? For starters he’s a lengthy 6-foot-5 forward which of course is good size but it’s also agility and skill. Many times Logan was the man bringing the ball up the floor, initiating the offense, and then working within the framework for his offense. His ball handling both ways against pressure grabbed attention and he did a nice job timing his attack using screens. Logan led his team in scoring knocking down multiple threes but to me what grabbed my attention was simply the Nagorski agility and comfort with the ball. He’s a small forward prospect.
Three. The Workers. What made this game exciting was the guys like Jacob Kooiman of Rocori and Drew Rudlong of Rocori, guys that defended hard and played actively on the other end. Rudlong put his body on the line throwing it at agile wings in chase and having to fight gigantic bigs inside. Drew also moved off the ball to score double figures over size. Kooiman hit a big three late and it was just one of many responsibilities that included playing point, working hard on defense to limit guard catches, and spotting up to score his team high point total. Add in Jacob O’Brien from Big Lake. Both O’Brien and Rudlong scored ten for Big Lake which was very important in supporting Nagorski.
Four. Mr Big Shots. Down the stretch Logan Nagorski had a defender on his hip but still managed to release and swish an elbow jumper that was hotly contested and made a kiss off the glass attacking right from a difficult angle. Two very impressive makes that won his team the game. These shots countered the two clutch threes made by Jacob Kooiman who had a chance at a third but missed the game winner. Logan had a game high 25 on 8 of 15 shooting, Kooiman had a team high 23 points on 9 of 16 shooting.
Five. Sam the Defending Man. Going into the half Sam Olson had 13 points making four of five foul shots and a three. Olson is usually a heck of a shooter and he did have 16 in this game but I was blown away by the way he defended. The Rocori senior made Nagorski complete some extremely difficult shots for his game high total and Sam moved with him laterally all game. It was a loss but Olson earned some respect in the loss with his defensive efforts.