It might be a little early to start talking about must-win games this high school basketball season, but Mitchell's game Friday at the Corn Palace has to at least be close to earning such a label.
The Kernels host Pierre, a 1-7 team that they already beat, 74-63, in the season-opener in Pierre. If the Kernels play as well Friday as they did last time, when they held a lead as big as 20 points in the fourth quarter, it won't be a problem. But lately, the Kernels haven't looked like the same team that jumped out to a 3-1 start.
Since then, the Kernels have lost three straight and fallen below .500 for the first time since the 2006-07 season. A 3-4 record is certainly no reason to panic in mid-January, but a 3-6 record and a five-game losing streak would be cause for alarm. That's what makes this weekend's games -- and especially Friday's contest against Pierre -- so critical.
A weekend sweep -- which would include an upset win Saturday at Sioux Falls Washington -- could drastically turn things back around for the Kernels. Two losses, on the other hand, could cause things to spiral out of control.
However, all the Kernels have to do to avoid the worst case scenario is take care of business against Pierre, a task that actually could be more difficult than it sounds. While Mitchell has lost three straight, the Governors seem like they might finally be figuring some things out. Last week, playing against two teams that have already beaten Mitchell, the Governors beat Brookings by 10 points and fell by one point to Huron.
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Despite its current slide, Mitchell has caught a break in the fact that the team is still only two games behind front-running Huron in District 3AA, and is actually still a game ahead of Aberdeen for second. But if the Kernels hope to take advantage of that break and make a run at Huron, they're going to need to find a way to make some adjustments.
It would be easy to point to Mitchell's recent inability to stop its opponents' big men as the major factor in the team's slump. Brandon Valley's stocky, 6-foot-4 center Chase Douglas went off for 35 points and eight rebounds Jan. 2 at the Target Center in Minneapolis, and in the next game, Yankton's 6-foot-5 center Jordan Mueller scored 21 points and pulled down six rebounds on Thursday. Mitchell wasn't competitive in either game.
But an undersized Mitchell team knew all along that it would be a battle inside. The more troubling aspect of late seems to be the disappearance of the offense.
Sure, Douglas went off for 35 points in Minneapolis, but his team still scored only 51 points. If you give up only 51 points in a high school basketball game -- especially with a shot clock -- you're going to win more often than not. But Mitchell's offense looked out of sync all afternoon, which could be blamed partially on the fact that the game was played in an unusually large venue for a high school game.
But things didn't get much better in Yankton. The Kernels got blown out, not because they couldn't stop Mueller and not because they couldn't rebound -- which they couldn't -- but because they once again struggled to put the ball in the basket. Mitchell was down 50-26 after three quarters, and that's just not going to be enough offense to win many basketball games.
For the Kernels' offense to start clicking again, somebody besides senior guard Brett Young is going to have to step up. Mitchell is 2-1 this year when he scores 20 points and 1-3 when he doesn't. Sam Fosness, Jake Schmidt, and at times, Tyler Volesky, have all chipped in with their share of points as well, but beyond that, the Kernels have gotten very little offensive production.
Fosness, Young and Schmidt were all in double figures against Yankton, but the rest of the team combined for only 10 points. Against Brandon Valley, those same three players led the team with a combined 34 points, Tyler Volesky chipped in with four, and the rest of the team was shut out.
In fact, that quartet has accounted for 84 percent of Mitchell's points this season, and only five Mitchell players have reached double figures in points on the entire season. Mitchell's sixth leading scorers, Turner Volesky and Nick Young, have eight points apiece. It says a lot about the team's lack of offensive balance when Nick Young, a JV star who has been used sparingly on varsity, is sixth on the team in scoring.
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There's still plenty of time to revive the offense, and there's no better team to do it against than Pierre, the team with the second-worst record in the state. However, the Governors do have an experienced team, and they did have a number of players working their way back from football injuries earlier in the year. The Kernels definitely won't be able to look past Pierre, even with Washington waiting on deck.
Friday's game won't make or break the year, but it could go a long way in shaping the direction of the rest of the season.
