The DMACC men's basketball program will open the 2020-21 season with a new head coach and a lot of potential after advancing to the National Tournament of the National Junior College Athletic Association (NCJAA) Division II Men's Basketball Championship last year. That tournament was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Bears have a new head coach in Brett Putz, who succeeds Josh Sash. Sash departed after one season to become an assistant men's basketball coach at North Dakota State University.
Putz comes to DMACC from Chicago State University, where he was involved in player development with both guards and post players, game planning, team travel and academics for the past two seasons. As recruiting coordinator for the Cougars, Putz helped recruit domestic and international student-athletes to Chicago State's campus.
Putz arrived at Chicago State after a short stint as an assistant coach at Highland Community College, located in Freeport, Ill. During his time at Highland, he was involved in recruiting, specifically international student-athletes, and organized player development.
Putz takes over a program that finished 29-4 last year and shared the Iowa Community College Athletic Association (ICCAC) regular season championship with Kirkwood Community College, who the Bears will face in the season opener at 7 p.m. on Wed., Jan. 20th (view schedule here).
The Bears return two players named to last year's NJCAA Region XI All-Region Second Team. They are 6' 11" center Ryan Schmitt of Van Meter and 6'0" guard Willie Guy of Cedar Rapids Jefferson High School.
Schmitt was the second leading scorer on the team last year averaging 12.6 points per game, 6.8 rebounds per contest and shot 60 percent from the field, which was the second highest in the conference. His 64 blocked shots led the team and were the second best in the ICCAC.
Guy averaged 8.6 points per game while making 42 percent of his field goal attempts, including 31 percent of his three-point shots and 78 percent from the free throw stripe. Guy's 186 assists led the team and were the second best among all players in the conference last season.
"My expectations for Ryan and Willie are to be our leaders both on and off the court," said DMACC Head Men's Basketball Coach Brett Putz. "This is something that didn't come naturally necessarily to either, but both have done a great job helping our new players understand the standards that are in place here at DMACC. We'll rely on both of them on the floor in big situations to be the guys that we play through offensively to get us quality shots, but defensively both are our anchors--Willie with his ability to defend the ball and Ryan protecting the basket."
The Bears return five other sophomores, including 6'1" guard Christian Haffner of Gresham, WI; 6'4" guard/forward Devin Wade-Henderson of Minneapolis Richfield; 6'1" guard Mark Bradshaw of Chester, PA; 6'9" forward/center Bradley Day of Suffolk, United Kingdom; and 6' 4" guard Mike Hartford of McKinney, TX.
"We have a great group of leaders on this team, as good as any I've ever been around," Putz said. "They set the standard from day one on how hard you need to work to succeed not only here, but at the next level as well. That has helped our underclassmen speed up their learning curve, because it's not only coming from the coaches, but the players as well."
The Bears roster will also include six freshman: 6'5" guard Preston Thomas of Princeton, MO; 5'10" guard Malachi Peasley from Panora; 6'2" guard Joey Tianen from Chicago; 6'8" forward Goanar Biliew from Denison; 6'3" guard KeShawn Christian from Iowa City and 6' 3" guard Treyton Sturgeon from Pella.
"For us to go as far as we want to, we have to be a great defense team," Putz said. "I believe that we have those pieces on the roster, now it's about establishing the mindset that we're going to be great defensively."
Putz said although he has not coached in this league before, he's recruited and followed the league for years.
"It's a great basketball league and takes teams playing a great brand of basketball to win night in night out," Putz said. "We'll be gritty, grimy and tough on defense, diving for loose balls, taking charges and flying around on defense. It takes a great defensive effort every night to win games in this league. That'll be magnified even more this year. Offensively, we want to play with a good pace, keep the ball moving and get a lot of paint touches playing through our best players."
Putz said his team has done a great job dealing with the COVID-19 restrictions and guidelines and said they have not really had a ton of COVID-related issues.