The boys’ basketball State Tournament isn’t until next week, but for teams that have completed their season, such as the Greene County Rams, thoughts turn to next season. Coach Jeramie Hinote’s 2015-16 Rams went 10-11 overall and 9-7 in the Heart of Iowa Activities Conference with six seniors on the squad. A handful of players that were not seniors saw varsity action this season and for those, and others who hope to play varsity basketball next season, off-season conditioning isn’t far away.

Coach Hinote told Raccoon Valley Radio that in another week the players will be doing strength and conditioning type of work. “That will go through the summer and into the start of the next school year. I’m big into your own body weight type of stuff- pushups, pullups, and situps, because in basketball you don’t throw around 300 pound bodies- you’ve got to throw around your own. You don’t need a lot of extra weight on you or lose flexibility and speed, in my opinion. I like to keep the guys who are more focused on basketball more agile and flexible. I understand some of the guys are multi-sport athletes, so it may be different for them.”

The coach added that at the end of April he’ll get with the players to go over Summer camp schedules. “We generally try and play about 30 varsity games in the Summer, but this year I do have about four more kids going to be playing AAU, so that might shave that off by about 10 games because they’ll be playing every weekend anyway with AAU.”