Former Hoosier Lance Stemler dishes on HS basketball, Trey Kaufman
Despite Indiana basketball being one of the historically great college basketball programs, a lot of fans try to forget the Kelvin Sampson years. While most fans would probably agree that what Sampson did is nothing like what a lot of major programs are doing now, it resulted in IU's program being set back for a full-four year class and still has lingering impacts on the program over a decade later.
Lance Stemler, who started his career off at Southwest Illinois, finished off his final two years of his college career in Bloomington during Sampson's years. In two seasons, Stemler averaged 5.4 points and 4.1 rebounds per game in 63 games played.
While playing in the NBA wasn't the route that Stemler went after graduation, he has still stuck around the game of basketball, now coaching at Providence in southern Indiana.
"There is a lot [of talent] down here. We are fortunate enough to be in 2A, 3 and 4A fight a lot for those spots," Stemler told Indiana Sports Beat. "Last year was a re-molding and building the culture and getting things rolling that way. With COVID hitting and taking away spring and through now kinda hurts that process. We have good classes coming up. It's obviously going to be a different team this year.
"If one player gets it [COVID], having to shut down for two weeks... there is just still a lot of unknown and deal with it the best we can. We have had a few people test and are in quarantine until they get their results back. It's just not easy to deal with."
Coaching in the southern part of the state, he has been able to spend some time with and see a lot of one Indiana target, Trey Kaufman. Kaufman, who plays for Silver Creek HS, is the top priority for IU in 2021. Like most coaches and recruiting analysts have said, Stemler notes how Kaufman continues to get better.
"I like to see him [Kaufman] cause I love to watch the good kids in the area," Stemler explained. "Trey has done a tremendous job through quarantine to continue to develop and get better. He's just a great kid. He's tough... They [Silver Creek] are going to be about as good as it gets in high school next year."
While being able to watch these young players showcase their skills is an added bonus, being a coach has allowed Stemler to use some of his past lessons to help kids out of all ages. Knowing what coaches and trainers can do to take the game of basketball and turn it into life lessons gives Stemler joy in what he does.
"Nowadays it's almost more reliant on coaches and trainers than what it was when I was coming up," Stemler said. "We all have those coaches that have impacted us if it was in sports or life. Sometimes you don't even get that until older. You understand why he did that or why he was pushing you and it really helps mold you into who you become."
For the rest of the interview in its entirety, click on the tweet below.
----
• Talk about it inside The Hoops Forum or The Football Forum
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Follow us on Twitter: @IndianaRivals
• Like us on Facebook.