The Prairie Conference was a battle in boys’ basketball last season. The Browerville Tigers had a fantastic season with 21 wins, finishing 11-1 alongside Upsala in conference.
The two teams split games in the regular season with each team winning on the road.

When the teams met in the playoffs, they knew it would be a battle from start to finish. It was a very close game but Upsala was able to come out on top 59-55 on a good playoff run that went to the state tournament.  

This season, the Tigers are back looking to redeem themselves after last season. They return many players from last season and have good experience this year.

Seniors Seth Kellen and Seth Christensen both return after starting last season and have a couple years of varsity experience.

Connor Burns will also return after missing much of last season with injuries.

Junior Mitch Heid started last year as a sophomore and  junior Kyle Petermeier was one of the main guys off the bench last season and should see an increased role this season.

Head coach Robert Schueller believes experience alone will be a good strength. He also believes they should be a well round team.

“We’re going to have a good offensive team and decent shooting,” Schueller said. “We’ve also always been pretty solid defensively, we like to play good defense.”

Although the Tigers will have a lot of size on their team, Schueller believes that could be a problem in some areas of their game.

“One of our weaknesses has been outside shooting, but our players have put in extra time there and hopefully we have fixed that,” Schueller said. “We’re also not really quick, but hopefully our size makes up for our lack of speed.”

Schueller believes a successful season will be a conference championship, or at least a chance at it. But the team also has their eyes on the playoffs.

“Our goal is to start out with a conference championship, but we’d like to win our side of the section and have a chance at winning the overall section,” he said.

Browerville has done a lot of work in the offseason as well.

“They did a nice job of getting in the gym and weightroom,” Schueller said. “We also played some summer ball with area teams.”

Schueller believes the conference will be tough this year with many teams competing for that top spot. “Upsala will reload and now have a couple guys with state experience,” he said. “They may be the frontrunner a this point but it’s probably too early to tell.”

The Tigers open up the season when they go on the road to take on Bertha-Hewitt on December 2.

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