Pine City Featured on MSHSL's John's Journal

Pine City Boys Basketball Is One Of A Kind

Posted by John Millea (jmillea@mshsl.org) - Updated 1/29/2018 1:56:07 PM

PINE CITY – Kyle Allen is a social studies teacher at Pine City High School, but mathematics is a major part of his job as head coach of the Dragons boys basketball team. That’s because everything is measured and charted: not only the typical things like shooting percentages and rebounds, but also talking. Yes, the Dragons keep track of talking. And that’s just the start of what makes this basketball team unlike any other. The most visible example: They rarely shoot two-point shots other than layups, and focus on firing from outside the three-point line. It’s all based on math. “I think numbers make a lot of sense to me and they always have,” said Allen, whose team takes a record of 12-5 into a home game Tuesday vs. Braham. “We want to put numbers to everything. That lets us measure everything.” The Dragons attempt and make three-point shots at a rapid pace. In fact, they set a state record by making 348 threes in the 2015-16 season (nearly 13 per game). When the ball is in the area of mid-range shots, it almost always is passed to the perimeter for a three-point attempt or tossed to an open man under the basket for an easy two. It’s a remarkable thing to watch. “It’s pretty fun playing on this basketball team,” said senior captain Jake Rademacher. “Who doesn’t want to shoot a lot of threes? Coach never yells at us for taking a bad three, and we just go crazy all the time.” Allen, in his seventh year at Pine City – which is between the Twin Cities and Duluth on Interstate 35 -- has instituted a style of play that is also based on conditioning, hectic full-court defense and rebounding. In an 80-54 win over East Central last week, they had a season-high 54 rebounds. Their average score this season is 76-48. “We didn’t shoot a great percentage (against East Central). We talk about that a lot,” Allen said. “We really try to focus on the rebounds. It’s the purposeness of it. The variable is, does the shot go in or not? We try to make the constant variable be our rebounding.” Allen designed the offense after learning about similar concepts used at Grinnell College in Iowa. He is a 2005 graduate of Black River Falls High School in Wisconsin, which also produced former Grinnell player Jack Taylor, who set an NCAA single-game record in 2012 by scoring 138 points. Pine City doesn’t do everything Grinnell does – the college team, for example, substitutes players five at a time for short, fast-paced on-court shifts – but the Dragons focus on defense as a way to kick-start their offense. “We feel real confident with our depth and we like to play lots of kids,” Allen said. “I love coaching defense. Offense is just running to the right spots, while defense is effort and motivation. We really tried to take it (from Grinnell) and make a model for it at the high school level.” The players work hard on defense, which can lead to an outpouring of fast breaks and layups. “One of our big things is the other team has to take every step we take, so we pride ourselves on being in condition,” said senior captain Clay Logan. “We incorporate it into every drill and we also do free throws, which if we miss we start running.” When it comes to talking, team managers keep charts during practices and games. “It can be an out-loud positive statement to an individual or it can be a boy going to another boy and having an arm-around-the-shoulder kind of thing and helping them out,” Allen said. “Jack Taylor did a camp here and one of his insights was every time a player shoots a three, the bench is supposed to erupt. He talked about a positive mindset.” In the game against East Central, the Dragons’ first points came on a three and their next basket was a layup. It quickly became apparent that this isn’t a typical basketball team. “As much as we as a coaching staff believe in us and in what we do, I think sometimes there’s human error,” Allen said. “We try to be as non-biased as possible. The numbers give you a fuller story. We’ve worked hard to do anything we deem important, we want to put a number to it.” The team’s statistical methods are also atypical. Shot charts pinpoint shooting percentages from five different locations outside the three-point line. This season the Dragons are shooting 57 percent near the basket and 45 percent from the right corner, for example. In 17 games they have attempted fewer than four shots per game outside of five feet but inside the three-point line. The shooting statistics also can be viewed as line graphs, bar graphs and pie charts. It’s all math and probabilities, but more goes into it. “When the coaching staff gets together, and the captains, the word we use is purposeness,” Allen said. “We don’t want to do things just to do them. We looked at everything and said, ‘Why are we doing this?’ ” The Dragons received national publicity last season when a reporter from the Wall Street Journal came to town and wrote about them (headline: “The Basketball Team That Never Takes A Bad Shot”). That has led to a steady stream of emails to Allen. “I’ve heard from hundreds of other coaches from around the world,” he said. “It’s kind of cool. It’s fun to talk basketball with people who want to talk about it. I’m able to connect with hundreds of coaches.” Allen isn’t aware of any other Minnesota high school teams playing a similar style. If coaches are thinking about it, he has some advice. “The big thing is, you have to know what you’re getting yourself into. You have to have 100 percent buy-in. Whatever you do, as long as you believe in it and teach your kids how to do it, it’s all about buy-in.” --To see a photo gallery, go to the MSHSL Facebook page. Follow John on Twitter: @MSHSLjohn