After the spring retirement of 20+ year basketball coach John Moore, the BSM boys’ team looks to Hans Hoeg to take the reigns. 

After coaching at BSM as an assistant in the 2010-11 season, Coach Hoeg is back with a new electric offense, featuring new plays with more ball screens and a quicker play style. “I loved my first year coaching at BSM, and when the opportunity to come back as the head coach was presented, I couldn’t pass it up,” Hoeg said. 

Hoeg understands the shoes he has to fill and is grateful for the opportunity. “Coach Moore built an incredible program with a lot of success. Our vision is to build on that success and continue to bring great kids to BSM. BSM is a tremendous school with great faculty, teachers, and students. I am very excited to be back where my coaching career began,” Hoeg said.

Hoeg has lots of experience playing and coaching basketball. Hoeg played college basketball at The University of Wisconsin-River Falls for three years, then he played his senior year at the University of Jamestown. After his college career, Hoeg found his way into the assistant coaching position for BSM in the 2010-11 season. He then moved on to coach at Augustana for four years where he developed his fast-paced style of play. 

With Hoeg as the new coach, the boys’ basketball team has a new leader to believe in, and players anticipate the change with the hope that these changes will attract a crowd of hopeful players. “I think having a coach like him will get people more involved in basketball and get this program to be more popular at Benilde,” senior captain Nick Peterson said. 

Another senior captain, Zach Carden, thinks Hoeg’s philosophies and playing style will fit seamlessly with the returning players. “Change is never a bad thing, and I believe Coach Hoeg’s new offense and philosophy will mesh well with the players we have,” Carden said.

Outlook on the season remains high with lots of returning players. “I think the players and coaches are as excited as I am to start practicing on November 18. We return a number of players who played significant varsity minutes last year, so that experience should really help us,” Hoeg said.

Senior captain Nels Birkeland had the most positive things to say about the team’s chances this year, “We’re in a good position to make a run this year; we have a lot of key pieces of our team coming back, and we have the opportunity to make a deep run in sections and hopefully into State,” Birkeland said.