Boys will be on the road a lot this season

The Pam Taylor gym has been filled with kids from grade school to high school practicing basketball after school. The season will start this next week with both the boys and girls seeing a lot of road games this year. In the picture above Viking Boys’ Basketball Head Coach Andy Feddema (back to the camera) dribbles the basketball while instructing the offense. Staff photo

Viking Head basketball Coach Andy Feddema welcomed 23 boys out for the 2021-2022 Cook County High School basketball team.

“We are a young team,” Feddema said this past week as he took a few moments off from the practice to talk about his players.

Returning starters include Derek Smith and brothers Paul and Jacob Dorr. The rest of the starting spots and key substitutions are open, said Feddema.

“The kids are working hard,” noted the coach as he put them through their paces. Early workouts include a lot of repetition to learn defense and offensive sets—which are essentially walk-throughs—and then a good dose of running in between to help with conditioning.

Feddema said his team would run a version of the Flex” offense. The Flex offense has been around since the 1970s. It features passing, screening, ball-reversal and the “flex cut,” options, and counters. The offense works with two players high and three players down low. The players down by the basket use screens and picks to get open and receive a pass from the guards on top. While the options are limitless, most of the time, the player down low who gets the ball can shoot it, go to the hoop, or kick it back to a player for a wide-open three or an easy two-pointer.

On defense, Feddema said his team would start with man-to-man and change it up to zone when needed.

The Vikings have a lot of away games this year. “I guess we will have a lot of home games next season. I guess that’s the way they set the schedule,” noted the coach.

That said, this will be a fun group to watch. And while they don’t have a lot of height, there are some big kids on the team, some pretty good leapers, and indeed some quickness. The Vikings December 7 away game against Northeast Range was cancelled because Northeast Range couldn’t field a boys’ team this year. Instead, the Vikings will open their season on December 9 against Mountain Iron-Buhl in Mountain Iron.