Nevis Boys’ Basketball Brings 4 Years of Experience to 2024 State Tourney

Nevis boys’ basketball defeated East Central last Friday in the Section 5A Championship, punching their ticket to the Class A State Tournament for the fourth year in a row. But it wasn’t an easy road, even if the Tigers made it look that way.

“What happens is, as you start winning, teams want to beat you,” said Nevis head coach Scott Kramer, “and as you go into regular action or tournament action, everybody is trying to give you their best game because after you’ve won for a while, you get a target on your back.”

The Tigers have won 96 of the 118 total games they’ve played over the past four seasons. Both are numbers not met by most teams, and all that extra playing time has proved valuable in the buildup to this year’s state tourney.

“The whole goal is to make it back to state. I mean, we have a lot of experience as a team,” said junior Alex Lester, “we just got to stay hungry and I think it’s the same every year, but we just needed to stay hungry this year.”

Something else that proved valuable to this year’s squad was early season adversity, as a chunk of the roster was busy playing for a state title in football when basketball season began.

“It was difficult,” explained coach Kramer. “We tried to get the guys a break, but because of the football schedule, we had seven games in 11 days after Christmas and we we didn’t do too well there, but that made us stronger.”

“The transition between football and basketball is huge,” added junior Devan Lindow. “Some of us haven’t shot as much as others, so [we had] extra practice, you know, and put in the hours.”

All this culminated in the Tigers winning their sixth section title, but it’s the game after the section championship that has given Nevis trouble. The Tigers have won games at the state tournament, including two last year to win the consolation bracket, but the boys are 0-5 in state quarterfinal games, proving how difficult it can be to win a state title.

“Part of it is, we ask ourselves, ‘Do we belong?'” suggested coach Kramer, “And we do, you know, we’ve just got to go play. We’ve been in every game that we’ve played in that first round. We just haven’t been able to get down there and get that first victory.”

This year could be different, thanks to an offense that averages over 80 points per game and sports three players with over 1,000 career points.

“It makes us more dangerous for sure,” senior JohnPaul Benson pointed out, “but we got, we got more than just three guys who can score the ball where we’re well-rounded all around. Even off the bench, we got guys that will come in and score the ball for us.”

Beyond the bench is the Nevis community, and while they don’t score points on the court, they play a big role off of it.

“The community is huge,” said senior Austin Ahrendt. “There’s so many people at every game supporting us, giving us a little baskets when we go to the section championship, all the little kids coming up to you, all the same families, you see them out in the community and they’re congratulating you.”

“It’s amazing,” added Benson. “It’s a great feeling to have all these all these support systems and everybody around you. It makes playing 100 times better.”

The 5-seed Tigers will play 4-seed Mt. Lake Area-Comfrey in tomorrow’s Class A State Quarterfinal at the Target Center.