Whitnall Hopes Historic Regular Season Carries Over to Tournament

Kent Kroupa has been around the game of basketball long enough to collect more than 350 high school coaching victories, including in excess of 300 at .

He’s taken three of his teams to the state tournament and brought home the school’s only boys hoops title in 1988.

But never has a Kroupa-coached team had as much success in the regular season as the 2011-12 Falcons, who begin the WIAA postseason Friday night after winning 20 of 22 contests over the first three-plus months of the season.

“Any time you win 20 games it’s an exceptional season,” Kroupa said. “It definitely, realistically and honestly far exceeded any expectations I had. I knew we would have a good year. I knew we would be in contention with Eisenhower and South Milwaukee for the title. But to be as good as it’s been has been pretty phenomenal.”

Just how good has this regular season been, a campaign that includes sole possession of the Woodland Conference crown?

“It either ranks 1 or 1A,” Kroupa said. “The 1988 state team wound up 18-2 regular season – we could only play 20 games – and this group, to go 20-2 in 22 games, it’s one of the best regular seasons I’ve ever had.”

The Falcons started the season with eight straight wins before suffering a 51-50 loss at New Berlin West on Dec. 20. They rebounded with four consecutive victories before being knocked off at New Berlin Eisenhower, 60-58, Jan. 20.

But the Falcons put a stamp on their incredible season by finishing it the way they started it – they host ninth-seeded Catholic Memorial at 7 p.m. Friday riding an eight-game winning streak.

Only two losses by a combined three points – or the equivalent of two missed shots – kept the Falcons from an undefeated season.

“We had a main goal of a conference championship and we just met that,” senior Stephen Pelkofer said. “I think we knew we were going to be a good team and we worked hard every day and ended up being a great team. Now we want to finish it out.”

Pelkofer, one of seven seniors on the squad, is also one of three players who averaged between 12.2 and 12.8 points per game along with fellow seniors Luke Mentkowski and Ian Ray. Throw in Bryan Nagy’s 8.4 points and three more players at 6.5 or more and it’s easy to see why the Falcons have generated matchup problems each and every game.

“Teams can’t lock in on one person,” Pelkofer said. “If they want to try to stop me, or try to stop Bryan, Ian and Luke will spot up and shoot. It’s great having that team balance because not many other teams have it.”

The emergence of Ray has been both the most unexpected and most needed. He played sparingly as a junior, but his points off the bench this season helped fill a void felt much of the season when junior scorer Danny Weymier missed time because of injury and illness.

“Ian Ray was a factor nobody knew we had,” Kroupa said. “I’ve had some really good shooters, he could be the best one as far as practice efficiency, game efficiency, being able to score quickly. Come off the bench, play 5 seconds and bury a 3 — he’s done that quite a few times for us.”

Kroupa hopes the success of Ray and the rest of his Falcons continues in a WIAA Division 2 regional semifinal against the Catholic Memorial Crusaders (13-10). The winner will play Friday’s winner between Eisenhower and New Berlin West at 7 p.m. Saturday, potentially pitting Whitnall against one of the two teams that beat them this season.

But the Falcons are taking it one game at a time.

“They have a lot of good basketball players,” Mentkowski said of the Crusaders. “Everyone at the school is overlooking them, but we’re not. They’re a lot like us in the fact that they play a lot as a team and whoever scores, scores.”