Inland Empire League 5A boys basketball preview

Around the league

Former Coeur d’Alene standout Kurt Lundblad takes over at his alma mater. A 1984 CdA graduate, Lundblad replaces Kent Leiss, who resigned with three games left in the regular season last season amidst parent dissatisfaction. Lundblad coached at Sandpoint for three years (1998-99 to 2000-01) where his teams were a combined 26-44 overall. As many as seven players started at various times last year at CdA. They were seniors Justin Carpenter, Austin Paulson and Elijah Tripp and juniors Ryan Walde, Colby Daniels, Tony Nacaratto and Devon Kluss. Senior Kelton Hunter opted to have shoulder surgery and will miss the season and junior Nick Hancock transferred to LC. “We’re athletic and fairly deep,” Lundblad said. “We’re not a great perimeter-shooting team but we get to the rim well as a whole. We need to share the ball better and play team defense better.” … Post Falls brings back three starters in seniors Corey Koski and Nick Hall and junior Dalton Thompson. Senior Joey Pfennigs and sophomore Max McCullough are challenging for starting jobs. “We’re returning seven players who played significant minutes in big games last year,” PF coach Mike McLean said. “We will defend very well. We had a great summer and improved our offensive scoring.” McLean expects big things. “We have the players to contend for another league title and district championship. Our guys have been committed to improving since the week after we returned from the state tournament last March.” … Lewiston returns one starter off a 7-13 team – senior Jaydan Rayner. Coach Corey Williams said his team’s strengths are speed and quickness. His concern is lack of size and length. “The league is very tough,” Williams said. “We will have to really rebound as a team and create some offensive opportunities with our defense.”

All-league returners

There are three – Guice, the league MVP last year, Pratt and Walde.