Redmen wrap up b-ball camp

The Marquette Redmen won their first basketball district title in four years back in March, thanks to a stifling man-to-man defense in the district final that Alpena had no answer for.

Brad Nelson, the head coach of the varsity boys basketball team at MSHS, has preached that same defensive philosophy, among other things, during the camp.

Coach Nelson and his staff focused on teaching the basic skills to not just the younger kids, but also to the junior varsity and varsity players.

Nelson knows that the four day camp lays the foundation for what he hopes is many more district titles in the years to come.

“The whole purpose of this (the camp) is to give kids the tools to work on over the course of the summer to make them a better basketball player and continue the success that we have established here over the last couple of years,” said Nelson.

“Winning that district championship makes you want to win it again,” said Larry Burnette, who will be a senior guard this fall for the Redmen. “Our team is kind of small this year, so we’ve been working a lot on our fast break and just pushing the ball up to get good shots,” added Burnette.

“We have a good freshman class coming in and they did well in middle school,” said senior guard Andy Nyquist. “We are going to work on the fundamentals with them,” Nyquist went on to say.

The varsity basketball team will head to Gaylord next week for a team camp. The Redmen will play eight games in three days.