Hayden Fry, the late, great Iowa football coach, was credited with saying, “Scratch where it itches.”
It was his way of saying, “our Hawks are adaptable.”
The Montezuma boys basketball team is adaptable, too – sometimes brilliantly so.
The Braves are not big, but they’re skilled – big time – in multiple areas.
Right now, they’re preparing for a Nodaway Valley team that may be that way as well. Not big, but able to do things by committee and get the job done.
The Braves (22-2) and the Wolverines (17-7) meet in a Class 1A sub-state game at 7 Saturday evening in Knoxville. The winner will be headed to the state finals.
Nodaway Valley starts a lineup that is listed at 5-8, 5-9, 5-10, and two guys we don’t have heights for, but look in a team photo like they might come in at 6-0. Maybe.
Montezuma is like that, too, except for 6-4 post Eddie Burgess, who has become quite a load for opponents of all sizes to try to handle in the final stretches of his sophomore year.
The Wolverines don’t appear to have that one big scorer like Keota’s J.D. Stout, but note that the Braves slowed Stout’s pace with a match-up zone defense.
What will the Braves need to do in this game? We’ll know after the game starts. We do know the teams have posted some eerily similar numbers.
Such as assists to turnover ratio. Nodaway Valley is at 347 assists to 163 turnovers. Montezuma is at 369 to 155. Both of those are very good and indicate quads that have bougt in to the team concept.
In steals, the Wolverines have 210. Montezuma has one more.
In rebounds, Nodaway Valley has 665. Montezuma has 669.
In assists, Nodaway Valley’s Joshua Baudler leads with 86, but all five starters are over 57. Trey Shearer leads Montezuma with 127 and Burgess has 74.
Toby Bower, a 6-0 junior, leads Nodaway Valley at 15.1 points per game. Clay Hohertz a 6-0 senior, is at 14.9.
Tyler Vandewater, a 5-8 senior, scores 10.3 a game. Baudler scores 9.9 per contest and Mason Menefee, a 5-10 junior, comes in at 8.5.
The Braves are hoping guarding their trio of 5-10 Trey Shearer (26.0), 5-10 Cole Watts (18.6) and Burgess (11.4) might be too much of a challenge for Nodaway Valley.
The Wolverines have four seniors, three juniors, three sophomores and three freshmen on their roster.
Nodaway Valley shoots 47 percent from the field, including 35 percent from three-point range and all five starters will launch them.
The Braves shoot 54 percent from the field, including .387 from behind the arc, and four will fire from back there.
So far, the season’s difference in made threes is six. Yes, just six (in favor of the Braves).
Each defense yields 48 points per game, while Montezuma scores 72 points a game, about seven more per outing than Nodaway Valley.
All those numbers would be boring, if they weren’t so interesting . . .both teams will meet at the center jump at 7 p.m. Saturday, with both trying to add to their positive totals.
NOTES: Nodaway Valley is located in Greenfield, the seat of Adair County. It’s about 55 miles southwest of Des Moines.
The Wolverines have a solid basketball tradition. The school won a Class 2A state title in 2006, and its website says it has produced 17 all-state players in program history.