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Blackfoot High School
School Info
Conference: 4A District 5-6 Conference
Classification: 4A
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Head Coach: Cody Shelley
Years as Head Coach: 1st Season
Previous Experience: Century Boys Head Coach – 15 seasons
Record Last Year: 1-22
Assistant Coaches:
Jake Harris
Travis Robison
Returning Athletes:
Jarod Greene, F/C, Junior
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Team Preview:
Written by: Matt Harris (@IdahoSportsMatt)
Eleven percent.
That’s the winning percentage of the Blackfoot boys basketball team from 2013-2015, amounting to a record of 5-40 over that span.
For all of the success that Blackfoot has had in football and baseball, that has not translated over to the basketball court for the Broncos.
Cody Shelley is on a mission to change that.
The former longtime Century head basketball coach, with two state championships to his name, begins to rebuild the Blackfoot program from the ground up. And he’ll start out by missing a key contributor to last season’s squad.
Taylor Pearson is out with major leg fracture suffered during football season. For a team missing one of their players before the season even gets going, that certainly could be a cause for concern mentally.
Shelley will have none of it.
“We have to believe that we can be good,” he said. “We need to start believing it before it will ever happen.”
Shelley noted that his team has worked ‘very hard’ in the offseason to improve and get ready for this year. He also hopes to lean on his team’s size to help shoulder some of the burden.
“Our front court is one of our strengths as we have good size,” he said.
He is also not afraid to have his team run on their opponents.
“We want to push the ball when we can,” Shelley said, adding that improving in all areas on offense will be a key to building the team and program this year.
Defensively, he said he wants the Broncos to be one word – tough.
“We gave up too many easy shots last year,” said Shelley. “We are mainly a man-to-man team and I hope tough defense leads to us pushing the ball.”
In the competitive 4A District 5-6 conference, teams have to bring their ‘A’ game every night. Shelley sees his Blackfoot squad putting forth great effort each night in hopes of energizing the program. It’ll be tough with contenders in Rigby and Preston standing in the way and the Gate City duo of Pocatello and Century looking to make strides as well. But, the Broncos have to start somewhere.
The only way to go from here is up.
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