Muskie hoopsters hit it big in Winnipeg

Four members of the Muskie senior boys’ basketball team came home winners from the NBA 3-on-3 tournament held in Winnipeg over the weekend, topping their eight-team division.
“They really enjoyed it. It worked out well,” said Paul Noonan, coach of the Muskie team and part of the tournament’s quartet, which included 16-year-olds Morgan Anderson, Dexter Hunsperger, Jeremy Strain, and Travis Stromness.

Noonan was impressed with the victory they found in one of the seven divisions in their 16-18 age bracket.
“With 60 teams there in their age group, they finished top seven out of 60 teams,” he noted.
The four won their round-robin matches 16-14, 16-13, and 16-9—earning them a bye in the quarter-finals.
They won their semi-final match 16-9, then went undefeated in the tournament by winning the final 16-14 in what Noonan described as a close match.
“It basically came down to Morgan Anderson stroking two two-point shots at the end” with their opponents up 13-10, he noted.
While Noonan is their coach on the Muskie team, there’s less to do for an abbreviated tournament like this. He just “made sure they got to their venues on time,” in this case, Red River Exhibition Park.
There’s more to come over the summer for the squad, though. They’ve got another 3-on-3 tournament in Thunder Bay on the Canada Day weekend, and possibly another event in International Falls next month.
“It keeps them playing the game in the off-season, which really helps,” Noonan said, adding other players on the Muskies may not practise their hoops skills as much over the summer.
He insisted the compact 3-on-3 game is a great way to develop skills for proper basketball.
“Definitely, it helps them to work picks and screens,” said Noonan. “It also helps them develop their low post moves . . . it helps develop their inside game a lot more.
“There’s a lot of give-and-gos, passes—it’s a good game,” he added. “It sort of hones their skills so far as developing proper technique.”