It is officially winter time and that means the DePaul Prep men’s basketball team’s season is in full swing. The team has a record of 22–3 this year (at the time of publishing) and are back to back state champions.
The team is led by head coach Tom Kleinschmidt. Kleinschmidt has many years of not just coaching but playing basketball. He played basketball at Gordon Tech, DePaul University, and then went on to play twelve years professionally overseas. He has been coaching for 19 years.
Kleinschmidt says for the past years he has been coaching at DePaul Prep, there have always been two goals in mind: “We want to win the Catholic league and we want to win the State Championship.”
Kleinschmidt says the key to achieve those goals is practice. He says that practice is like preparing for a test, and the tests are the games. Kleinschmidt said that a main factor in practice is defense, and the little details. “How we guard ball screens, how we switch, how we are in the help line,” he said.
Practice is also based on the upcoming opponents, such as if a player on the opposing team is one that shoots a lot, the team will practice how to guard that player in practice.
How the team prepares for games is also a lot of film watching. Coach Kleinschmidt says “We will give a scout of the opposing team, and the team watches the film at the beginning of the week so the guys can have a visual. Then in practice we make those adjustments of the scout to prepare for the game”.
He also says another key role for the team is leadership. One player that is a leader whether playing or not is senior Manuel French. He has been playing basketball since 4th grade and has been on the varsity team for two years. He said that playing at the varsity level is really about sacrifice and that is the main way to achieve the goal of the season.
“Understanding your role and sacrificing to work hard everyday to achieve those two goals and if the team understands that, those goals will be achieved,” he said.
He also described how practice is key to achieving this goal. A typical practice he said is usually working on defense and preparing for the competition they face.
“If you don’t work hard in practice, it is a waste, practice is key and the hard work that goes into practice” he said.
Another player, senior Jonas Johnson, has been playing basketball since he was three years old. He has been on the varsity team here at DePaul Prep since his sophomore year. He said that this season the goal of winning the Catholic league and another state championship is very important.
“To win back to back to back would be amazing and give a huge morale boost to the program and school community,” he said.
To achieve this goal he said that the key is practice. By practicing it makes the whole team better mentally and physically for games, he said.
“By stacking practices everyday, being disciplined, doing what we do, and playing in our culture is the way to win and succeed”, he said.
Playing in their culture is playing together as a family and staying disciplined is being responsible on and off the court. He said if all of those factors are in line, the goal will be achieved.
Overall the varsity team’s season is continuing to play out and the goals of the season help motivate the players. By achieving these goals, the success will be in effect and rally all through the DePaul College Prep community.
