We are back from our weekend trip out to Springfield and we are happy to have picked up a couple wins.

It’s hard to gauge really what happened as everyone in the D-League is feeling out the level of competition right now and we are in that boat too.  So as we love the wins, not everyone will be convinced that they were great wins yet. But the thing that I am happy with is this:  we played really hard, we played collective defense, and we shared the ball.  At this point in the season out of training camp, that is what we are after.

Building chemistry and cohesiveness is an elusive thing sometimes in our league.  So am I happy?  At this point, all ten guys are on the same page.   We did face some challenges, going on the road, playing two games in 36 hours, traveling on Thanksgiving etc…and we handled most of that really well.  We had good performances from a lot of different guys.  So, no need to mention anyone specifically this time.

We played really good team defense. We held the Armor to 73 points in the first game which has to be some kind of record for us.  We should look that up.

We are back at it in practice, and getting ready for Fort Wayne, who is very talented. They have a new coach in Joey Meyer, who is one of the best in this League.  He has a lot of talent and they are coming off a very impressive win versus a tough Erie team.

It’s dollar beer night too, and tons of other things going on.   Come on out and see this team, they play hard and play well together.  You will be proud of this team and how they represent Des Moines and the Energy.

See you Thursday.

Nick

Here is a quick re-cap.

First of all as a team, we played pretty hard and executed some of the things we spent our entire training camp on.  Things like transition defense, rebounding, and defense in general.  We had a decent effort from everyone 1-12.  We were able to play everyone quite a few minutes and probably gave some more minutes to players who are on the cut bubble and further down the roster than we normally would have done in a regular season game, but we used the game as a real evaluation tool. (We have to cut two more players by Wednesday.)

Curtis Stinson – played a very good game, he is a better player this year than last.  His shooting is ever improving, he runs the team and he had just a real solid game scoring 15 points, hitting one three ball, and dishing out 8 assists.

Pat Carroll- is a good all around player, he shot it well, did have a few more turnovers that normal, but got put in some funny situations.  He plays at both ends, and has a high IQ to go along with his good outside shooting touch.  He made some big shots when the game was in the balance.

Jeff Trepagneir – Jeff is down 20 lbs from a year ago and is in great shape.  He is viewed mostly as a 3 point gunner, but his overall team play was solid yesterday.  He knows how to play defense and is giving great effort on that end so far.

Earl Barron – played hard, not great, is a good outside shooter, but has tools to play well with his back to the basket has well.  Played really hard on Saturday, had some foul trouble, but love his attitude and work ethic.

Darryl Watkins – did a nice job, played with energy and size, had a couple big time power dunks and was into it on D.   A lot of talent.

Mark Tyndale – Mary was very good on Saturday.  He made a lot of things happen.  Defending hard, and also took it to the basket. He is always mixing it up in a good way.

Marvin Philips – Marvin did his thing, grabbed 6 rebounds in only 16 minutes.   He is a really hard working defender and rebounder.

Adam Emmenecker – Adam did a credible job, although he did get a number of his passes tipped that he need to adjust to, he played a lot and brought the game home.  He was on the floor running the point for the last 15 minutes of the game as Stinson rested.

Shy Ely — played a good second half.  He is a young man with a huge upside, EXCELLENT defender, who is long and explosive.  Hit a three and scored 9 points in only 19 minutes.

Sean Barnette – Sean had an ok game, makes a lot of plays that go unnoticed in the stat sheet.  Rebounds and blocks shots over and above his size with a quick first step. He will need to get used to the added size he is playing against at this level up from D2 college ball.  A talent.

Russell Hicks- Big strong man.  Had a tough time with the under sized and super quick team we played.  Although, he still played well.  Plays hard and is absolutely huge out there.

Rashad Anderson – Rashad did what we thought he could do, scores and shoots it. He really stretches defenses and is cold blooded when it comes to scoring.

That’s an individual breakdown but our coaching staff is just pleased with the work ethic and togetherness this team has displayed so far from the start of training camp.  It is always the biggest challenge in the D-League.  All the teams have a ton of talent, but meshing that talent and doing that over 50 games is our challenge.

-Nick Nurse, Iowa Energy Head Coach

Well we are a couple of days away from our third draft in as many years and we are busy trying to put all the pieces together.

First let me give you a quick run down of how the draft works and of how we put our roster together.

Let’s start with our returning players:

We currently hold the rights to 15 players that played for us last year.  Of those 12 remained unsigned right now.  Othyus Jeffers and Cartier Martin are playing in Italy, and John Edwards is playing in Greece.

The rest of our guys are un-signed, but a lot of them are trying to go for a little higher paying jobs in Europe.

Courtney Sims, Anthony Tolliver, Marvin Phillips, Denham Brown, Demetris Nichols, Jeff Trepagnier, Patrick Sanders, Brian Evans, Curtis Stinson, Mark Tyndale, Artistide Sawadogo, and Shawn Hawkins are part of this list.

We also have a “local allocation list” of ten players.  These include former Iowa State, Iowa, UNI, and Drake players for instance.  We can have up to TWO of these players.

We will select NINE players from the former players list, local allocation list, and possible any players that we really liked from our local try outs.

So we should see some familiar faces, and hopefully a couple more familiar faces from our state universities.

After all those decisions get made, which will be by  Tuesday Nov. 3rd by noon,  we start making our final preparations for 8 rounds of our draft on Thursday night Nov 5th.

So, we then will have 17 players to bring to training camp on Nov. 11th.

That all made perfect sense right?

Well, its a bit complicated, but in the end we will send out 10 players come opening night we know will play hard and represent the Energy and make a push to win another divisional title.

Hope to see you at the draft and at opening night.

Coach Nurse