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Quick Q&A: Hill-Murray coach Dick Ghizoni

By Star Tribune, 03/22/14, 5:03PM CDT

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Boys’ basketball coach Dick Ghizoni retired recently after 33 seasons and 450 victories with three schools: Hill-Murray, St. Agnes and Minneapolis Southwest.

Quick Q&A

Dick Ghizoni

Hill-Murray

Retired boys’ basketball coach

 

Hill-Murray boys’ basketball coach Dick Ghizoni retired recently after 33 seasons and 450 victories as a head coach at three schools: St. Agnes, where he won a state championship in 1994, Minneapolis Southwest and Hill-Murray. Staff writer Jim Paulsen talked with Ghizoni about some of the hot-button issues in high school basketball.

 

Does “recruiting” actually happen? I haven’t seen it. A good program attracts good players, whether or not it’s a public or private school. A lot of it has to do with continuity of the coaching staff and the success they’ve had. Top programs draw better kids. The bigger issue to me is transfers.

 

Talk about transfers. When kids start transferring around to two or three different schools, that gets ridiculous. We’ve had our share of transfers here. But we haven’t had any kids transfer out. It’s when there’s more than one transfer that it gets to be a problem.

 

What are your thoughts on the recent Hopkins/Shakopee “stall” game? I don’t think I would have coached like that. Shakopee was playing for a tie. Hopkins was playing to win and had the ball in its hands. The only way for Hopkins to lose was to lose the ball. If I was Shakopee, I don’t think I would have wanted Hopkins to get the last shot.

 

Does high school basketball need a shot clock? No question about it. We pushed hard for years to get 18-minute halves, and that’s been great. I think the $5,000 figure [for clocks] can be dealt with. We can find a way to make it work.

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