In what ended up being the biggest home court margin of victory under second-year head coach Bradyn Kemper, underclassmen scored nearly 86 percent of the North Platte boys’ basketball team’s (1-0) points in the 49-32 season opening win over Midway (0-1) on Nov. 22.
North Platte didn’t have a ton of experienced starters ahead of the season opener after losing three starters from last year, along with current senior guard Kaden Mullendore being out with a broken hand. While the performance was far from perfect, the Panthers were able to build a 3-point lead at the break and never trail in the second half to pull out the win.
“We have a lot of young guys – we started two freshmen and a sophomore – and a lot of guys that are returning are in new roles,” Kemper said. “It was good to get that win to give us some experience and get some jitters out of the way.”
North Platte freshman Dylan Armstrong, above right, scored 17 points in the Panthers 49-32 season opening home win over Midway, which is the largest margin of victory under second-year head coach Braydn Kemper, on Nov. 22.
Midway made eight trips to the charity stripe in the first half, making seven of its 16 attempts to make up for half of the Vikings’ points at the break. North Platte headed into the locker room with a 17-14 advantage, thanks to the Panthers’ defense.
“We brought some defensive pressure in that first half, and that’s something we’ve been working on. Even when the clock was stopping on fouls, we were able to find a way to turn them over and get the ball back,” Kemper said.
Freshman starters Brenden Matt and Dylan Armstrong made huge strides in the second half, scoring all 12 third quarter points for North Platte which put the Vikings behind, 28-19. A Creek Johnson inbound layup with 5:22 left in regulation ignited a 13 to two run that included four made 3-pointers by Matt and sophomore Westin Snook – with both players hitting two apiece – to blow the game open and give the Vikings a loss.
“At halftime, I said be patient around that zone defense and wait until we get a great look and I thought we did a good job executing that. In the second half, we actually waited for our shots, and we got a couple to drop, and in basketball, that’s contagious,” Kemper said.
With this being Kemper’s second season with North Platte, the 17-point margin narrowly surpasses his previous career-best margin of victory – which was a 16-point win over East Buchanan on courtwarming last year – on the Panthers’ home court. In the 2021 season opener, North Platte defeated Midway 48-42 in overtime to also start off with a 1-0 record.
Kemper told the Platte County Citizen that his secret to his 2-0 career record in season openers is that he watches the 22-year-old action movie, “Gladiator,” the night before. While last winter started off with a win, the Panthers went on to lose their next four games, but Kemper is determined to keep that history from repeating itself on this go-around.
“I think one big thing is we have to do a better job of learning from this first game. Even though we won, we still have to learn from the things we did wrong; we have to get better on the glass, get into our offense better and take better shots,” Kemper said.
Matt scored a team-high 17 points and Armstrong ended with 16 points. The Panthers will be back at it on Dec. 3 with a road game against Lone Jack (2-0), before opening up the KCI Conference Tournament with a matchup with Plattsburg (0-0) on Dec. 5 at West Platte High School.