The Becker Bulldog boys basketball program had a busy summer, with several new members of the coaching staff guiding summer workouts and 20 games of competition for the 20 to 30 players who were active participants.

Cory Nuest takes over as Head Coach of the Bulldogs and brings with him a desire to build not only a great basketball program, but also one that produces stellar citizens.

“Our mission is to build better players and to help them become better people,” Nuest says. “I want to give our players a great high school basketball experience where they can build relationships that last a lifetime.”

A graduate of Hancock, MN, Nuest played collegiately at the University of Northwestern (St. Paul), where he finished his career as the team’s MVP and a 1,000 point scorer, finishing second all-time in school history in steals and assists.

He also has vast experience in the Becker Youth Basketball organization (12 years as Board President), and head coaching experience in the MN Comets Elite program before starting as Assistant Coach last season for the Bulldogs.

This summer, Nuest and his assistants have been working on instilling the cornerstones of his program - what he refers to as the six C’s: compete, coachable, charisma, commitment, composure and connect.

While basketball skills were an important focus of the summer program, Nuest also had a laser-focus on building connections and relationships between the players and coaches.

Activities in that area included a team softball game, sand volleyball tournament, pickle ball competitions and team cookouts.

“We mixed together competing, as well as connecting,” Nuest says. “We had a great commitment from the players all summer.”

The varsity team went 13-7 in their 20 game summer season, while the JV finished 14-6. Nuest used the opportunity to implement an up-tempo style of play that focused on fast-paced offense and emphasized spacing, quick decisions, ball movement and pressure defense.  

“We have to find a way to play really fast and wide open... when we played like that this summer, it showed up in our 13 wins,” Nuest says.

Helping Nuest instill the new style is his top assistant Jesse Peterson, who will serve as the defensive coordinator for the Bulldogs. Peterson is a former Becker Intermediate School teacher who went on to a career in administration, currently serving as an Elementary Principal in STMA.

“Jesse is a leader of men. He has a heart for kids and a passion to use basketball as a tool to grow men,” Nuest says of Peterson, a collegiate player at Bethel.  “He is an elite defensive mind.”

While the search for a JV head coach continues, Nuest does have returning coaches Jon Crowley (a 2014 Becker grad who will coach the JV B team) and Robert Hoekstra (nearly 20 years of basketball coaching experience and the team’s C squad coach) to help build the consistency of the program.

Overall, Nuest says he values the input of his coaching staff and appreciates the work they put in over the summer. Now, the goal is to have the hard work translate into a consistent, winning program at the varsity level.

“We want to compete for conference and section championships and we are focused on building better men and players because we know that winning programs have good people and good players,” Nuest says. “We have really good kids in the program and many of them are three sport athletes.”

And in just three months, the players and coaches will get a chance to show how their off-season work has paid off.