PGH Illinois Video Series

As we have all been taking care of ourselves at home and wishing for the basketball season to resume I have tried to be creative in bringing content to the public. To accomplish getting you as much material as possible we have began to support our written material with a YouTube video/podcast discussing these articles and more. Jacob Wohlwend and I have done 4 videos in our series so far. In these videos we each discuss articles we have written in the previous week and we also give some thoughts on other prospects in an "open" section. It is a great opportunity to learn a little more about the players we are covering in our articles and also to pick up info on players that we have not covered yet. In addition to create new and different material I have been doing other interviews. First I began doing interviews with coaches. These interviews bring two coaches from the same conference together discussing their team review from last year and preview of the team for next year. In addition we look at the top teams returning in the conference for next year. I did the SWC with Coach Knolhoff from O’Fallon and Coach Kemezys from Belleville East, South Central conference with Coach Dothager from Greenville and Coach Storm from Pana and  the Prairie State conference with Coach Oller from Father McGivney and Coach Green from Alton Marquette. From these coach interviews I decided to get the players involved so I transitioned into doing one team at a time and involving some of their top players. This was designed to first of all get exposure to college coaches and second to help me get to know some teams in areas that I cannot cover during the season. So, I set out to involve teams I know and teams I do not know. My first session was with Coach Williams and his Decatur MacArthur team. We got to know <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="158287" first="Quincenia" last="Jackson"] , Taya Davis and Kayla Jackson. </strong>Next we spoke with Coach McQuiston from Freeburg and learned more about her returning players <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="160151" first="Maddy" last="Schwemmer"] and [player_tooltip player_id="148172" first="Kylie" last="Kisgen"]. </strong>The third session was with the team from Pana. Coach Storm joined me along with returning players <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="124895" first="Jillian" last="Hamilton"], [player_tooltip player_id="160150" first="Rachel" last="Holthaus"] and [player_tooltip player_id="160141" first="Anna" last="Beyers"]. </strong>Our latest session was with the team from Paris. Coach Tingley joined me with returning players <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="159965" first="Madyson" last="Rigdon"], [player_tooltip player_id="124854" first="Kate" last="Littleton"] and [player_tooltip player_id="160135" first="Trinity" last="Tingley"]. </strong>We will continue to move forward with these interviews and play with the format. We strive to balance the opportunity to learn from the coach about the previous season and the program while ensuring we provide a forum to get to know the players. We are currently scheduled to interview Belleville East, O’Fallon and are working to schedule Springfield SHG. I am hoping to get more teams that are outside of my main conferences that I cover to expand the exposure for the players. Please reach out to me if you have interest so we can get you scheduled. The most exciting interview for me was the chance to get all four of the number 1 ranked players in the PGH Illinois girls rankings on the same zoom interview. We were able to talk to <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="11916" first="Angela" last="Dugalic"], [player_tooltip player_id="6971" first="Greta" last="Kampschroeder"], [player_tooltip player_id="11460" first="Brianna" last="McDaniel"] and [player_tooltip player_id="148126" first="Jordan" last="Wood"] </strong>about their skills, background in the game, recruiting and players that have influenced them. This was a fun session. I especially enjoyed Greta and Angela opening up about their recruiting experience as I believe that is valuable material for every player that wants to play college basketball. It does not matter if the schools recruiting you are top 10 in the country or D3 schools in Illinois. The process is the same and the feelings are the same. Learning from those that came before you is a blessing, Take a look if you have not already. Starting today we will begin interviewing the Directors/Founders/Leaders of some of the top AAU organizations around the state. We will begin with Jerald Davis and the Chicago Hoops Express team. JD will go through some of the history of his organization and bring with him a who’s who list of former players and coaches. The talent that has come through the CHE organization is impressive and it will be fun to hear former players talk about their CHE experience. From there we will jump to having Jacob Wohlwend interview some of the current CHE players so we can learn more about the talented players that are missing out on playing right now and get them some exposure. I look forward to this. We will record at noon today(Saturday) and I will post it this afternoon. Next Saturday we will move to the central part of the state to the Indiana Elite Havoc group run by Dan Gates. They were the Indiana Flight West group the last few years. From there we will continue to schedule these sessions each week to learn more about the AAU organizations around the state. If you are interested in being a part of this please reach out to Jacob or I to get on the schedule. On twitter I am @don_halling and Jacob is @prephoopsjacob. You can also email us, don_halling@yahoo.com or prephoopsjacob@gmail.com. The last interview I did that I wanted to mention here is with a college coach. I interviewed coach Dave Brown from Rend Lake Community college. In this interview we discussed his background and the team/school. My idea was that it is a chance for a coach to make the public aware of who they are and the type of program they run. Rend Lake is in the far Southeastern corner of the state. I suspect that players that reside further north than the Metro East St Louis area likely know little to nothing about them. I hope by talking to coaches I can help them extend their reach and circle of influence. Recruiting is obviously a huge part of what you do as a college coach, if I can help by providing recruits a way to learn about schools that they should look at, then great. I do not currently have interest from any other schools/coaches but I would love to get some more going if possible. These interviews are all on my YouTube channel. There is no cost to watch them as many time as you want. Take a look at what we are doing and hopefully keep yourself entertained without searching Netflix, Prime Video or Hulu. My channel can be found by a simple google search for Don Halling Youtube or by going to Youtube and searching my name. Of course, I also tweet all of these videos out so they can be found by checking out my tweets. I hope you enjoy the girls basketball coverage.