Top-ranked Decorah hopes to follow record-setting regular season with strong postseason

CEDAR RAPIDS — He coaches the top-ranked boys’ basketball team in Class 3A.

Yet Jonathan Carlson claims he has no idea if his Decorah Vikings really are No. 1. He’s not sure if they’re No. 5, No. 10 or lower.

He honestly isn’t certain.

“It’s one of those deals where you don’t really know how you truly stack up,” Carlson said. “I don’t know that we’re the No. 1-ranked team in the state. But that’s where we’re at.”

Decorah takes a 19-1 record to the postseason, which begins for all 3A teams and some Class 4A clubs Monday night. Decorah hosts Crestwood (8-13) in a 3A substate opener.

The Vikings won regular-season encounters by 16 and 17 points, respectively. That’s actually under Decorah’s average margin of victory, which is 26.6.

Decorah lost to Western Dubuque, 49-46, in the second game of the season, beat Rushford-Peterson (Minn.) by a point just before Christmas. Every other game has been a Vikings win by at least 14 points.

“It’s no disrespect to the opponents, but it’s one of those things where I don’t know if it’s that we’re that good, or if we’ve had bad opponents or what. You know what I mean?” Carlson said. “It’s hard to know because our conference is definitely down from what it’s been ... I think our conference is OK, but it’s definitely not where it’s been.”

Decorah won the Northeast Iowa Conference for the third straight season, the first time that has happened in school history. The Vikings set a school record with their 19 regular-season wins and hope to progress at least one more step than they did last season when they lost to Western Dubuque in a substate final.

Decorah hasn’t qualified for the state tournament since 1977. It is the top seed, naturally, in Substate 2.

“We’ve kind of talked about (how) we’ve just got a target on our back and everyone is going to give us their best shot to knock off No. 1,” said Decorah senior captain Jacob Pipho. “But we’ve just got to keep playing as kind of the underdogs. We haven’t really even been seen by most of the state what we can do.”

Decorah leads 3A in scoring at 73 points per game, yet its leading scorer (senior Joseph Bockman) averages just 14. Six guys are between 14 and 8.5 a game, which shows you how much balance this club has from an offensive standpoint.

It leads 3A in assists as well, which shows you an unselfish nature from an offensive standpoint. Bockman averages 4.1 a game, while sophomore point guard Trey McCain led the NEIC at 4.9 per game.

“We feel like we have a situation where we don’t have any weak player, per se, but we feel like we have an elite talent with our point guard Trey McCain,” Carlson said. “In my opinion, he is one of the fastest point guards around. (Assistant coach) Raef (LaFrentz) told me he’ll be the fastest point guard you’ll probably ever coach. He can really fly with the ball, and that’s been our deal. He just gets the ball and goes.”

Sophomore Ben Bockman (Joseph’s brother) is second on the team in scoring coming off the bench. Pipho, Carson Wemark and Joseph Hjelle are the other regular starters. Noah Storts is another scoring threat off the bench.

“I feel we’re really deep,” Pipho said. “We have a lot of guys we can put on the floor who know their roles, and we get the job done. We’re conditioned well, we get up and down the court, we transition, we rebound hard. Everyone is playing for each other. We share the ball a lot, no one is really selfish. I think it’s tough to guard because we’ve got so many guys who can put the ball in the hoop.”

Interestingly, Decorah has just 10 players on its varsity roster. But 10 has provided heaven.

“Obviously the regular season is over now, so we’ll see how we handle it in the postseason,” Carlson said. “But they’ve been pretty good with it.”

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