BELOIT — The Beloit Memorial boys basketball team finished 21-6 overall this past season, clinching its first winning season since 2016-17 and winning its first regional title in 10 years before falling in the sectional semifinals.
But head coach Todd Marks said that while going that far into the postseason is hard, replicating that kind of success season to season is even more difficult.
And that’s precisely why the Purple Knights are busy on the court this June, playing in a slew of tournaments around Wisconsin to ensure they are ready to go come November.
“It’s been one season to the next,” Marks said. “As soon as the season’s over, the players go off to their spring sports, and then the next thing you know, it’s the beginning of June, which in high school basketball in Wisconsin is really a big time for teams to kind of work with their kids. We’ve been hitting it hard here in June.”
Beloit finished up play in the Janesville Parker league with a 7-2 overall record. It also showed off strong performances in Marquette’s team camp and the June Jam, which is sponsored by the WIAA and WBCA.
The Purple Knights also plan to attend the WBY Summer Tournament.
“It’s about 25 to 30 games that we’ve played in a pretty short amount of time,” Marks said. “But, it’s been good because that’s how you see what you need to work on, start looking at rotations and trying some different things and seeing what might work and what we have to improve on.”
Part of this summer will be about watching who can step up in the absence of several graduated players. And one of the biggest holes that the Knights will look to fill is the role of 6-foot-5 post player Jyrell Cousins, who paced the Southern Lakes Conference with 10.3 rebounds per game and scored 13.4 points per game on 52% shooting. He also delivered 21 booming blocks to help get named to the Beloit Daily News All-Area Second Team and the SLC Second Team.
“You look at some things that Jyrell was able to cover just with his size and his ability to rebound and defend and score, too,” Marks said. “But that’s something that we’re working on is how can we collectively rebound because we weren’t super big last year, and we’ll probably be a little bit smaller again this year.”
Marks added that there has been plenty of success through summer ball in filling and expanding roles, and facing great competition in these tournaments is helping those players grow in their part.
“We’ve played some really, really good competition all summer in all different parts of the state,” the head coach said. “We go to Marquette, where we play teams from Illinois and from Minnesota, and you find out pretty quickly where your strengths are and where your weaknesses are. Guys realize where they need to get to. It’s a learning curve and that’s part of the process.”
The mixture of the different types of teams and their varying styles of play is also a big benefit of playing in these summer tournaments.
“You see teams with guards, you see teams of bigs and you see teams with a lot of talent,” Mark said. You have to adjust a little bit on the fly in the summer. There’s not that same scouting report, you’re making your adjustments as you go.
“You go over to Parker you see a lot of teams that you see during the season. If you’re keeping the scoreboard, guys are cranking up the intensity. There’s a lot of good teams, whether it’s within your league or some smaller schools that have some really good teams too.”
Teams from Milwaukee and Madison to area schools like Clinton, Beloit Turner and Big Foot along with those south of the border, like Belvidere, are all playing in Janesville this month.
Among those shining in the spring and summer has been soon-to-be junior Amare Hereford, who has been putting up impressive numbers with his travel basketball team, Power 5.
Hereford, the Knights’ offensive catalyst, was a scoring machine as he averaged 25.1 points per game last season, best in the SLC, was third in assists at four per game and was the co-BDN All-Area Player of the Year.
The guard also has shown no signs of slowing down as a Purple Knight as he tears it up on the court in summer ball for Beloit, putting in a particularly great performance in the WIAA/WBCA June Jam.
Hereford’s impressive performances has garnered him a pair of NCAA Division I offers with Western Illinois and Northern Illinois.
“And things have changed a little bit now with the transfer portal,” Marks said. “Schools aren’t offering kids at an early age at nearly the rate that they were a handful of years ago, when they said, ‘Hey, this is our roster.’ And they could start to plan out two or three years beyond thinking that they would have the core guys in their programs. A lot of these college programs are piecing things together year by year.
“And for Amare to get a couple offers like that at this young of an age, even before his junior year, that just speaks volumes of his game, which translates so well to the next level. He’s got this burst. He’s putting time in and making his body stronger.”
Marks has also been impressed with the work he is seeing out of junior James Ford, who developed into a strong perimeter shooter for the Knights last season.
“James has been rock solid for us all summer,” the head coach said. “He’s just so steady and so smart. His role will be expanded to in terms of what he’s expected to do defensively, so we’re expecting big things from him.”
Another starter who Marks sees a lot of upside in is Brock Hodges, who became quite efficient at his hard drives through the post and to the basket in his sophomore year.
“Brock can really take that next step,” Marks said. “How he defended, his ability to score, his ability to be a playmaker — he’s going to have a big impact.”
The third-year Beloit Memorial head coach is also happy to be seeing several players who were deep on the bench last season looking primed to increase their minutes on the court.
“Jatavion Crawford and JJ Martin are going to have an expanded role in terms of what they’re going to be expected to do on both ends. And then we look at some guys who, I don’t want to say plug in because replacing Jyrell is just not that easy to do, but guys who provide us some rebounding and some scoring. Jeremiyah McCallister has had a really good summer for us. Beckham Denu had a really good summer for us, and Vinny Phiffer has done some nice things for us as well. Tucker Sherrod’s in that mix, too. He has a pulled hamstring so he hasn’t played as much.”
Once the weather turns cold these Purple Knights will be back at Barkin Arena looking to repeat a postseason run, but first it’s about fine-tuning the squad in the heat of summer.
“You have to put the work in,” Marks said. “There’s no guarantees. We have a lot of work ahead of us, and we’re just going to keep grinding. Hopefully we’ll continue to build that tradition and make the community and the school proud.”
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