The undefeated Lincoln boys basketball team isn’t quite sure of their place in history.
“I think the last one was a girls basketball team in the ’80s,” said senior Kyle Eckhoff. “They were like, 23 or 24 and zero.”
In fact, this is the first Lincoln boys basketball team to start 25-0 since the school started taking records in 1969. All but two of those wins have been by six points or more. They’re doing it with an obsession over one thing. “Defense,” said Mack Hesse, a senior on the team. “Our identity is defense.”
“We play great defense,” said senior Ross Johnson. “We work hard on it every day in practice.”
“We’re good at what we do,” added senior Kaleb Mundy. “And we really like defense. It’s what we’re good at. It’s what we’re known for. It’s just, we’re different, man.”
The team allows an average of fewer than 38 points per game, in part because head coach Tyler Burke allows them to be themselves. “He says all the time, ‘You guys are the ones out there playing,'” said senior Connor Lynde. “He said one time when he was sick, ‘I think you guys could play there without me and you’d be fine.'”
The five senior starters for this team were all on the district championship squad from two years ago. And as they’ve grown, coach Burke’s style has evolved with them.
“He’s like, ‘If you guys were sophomores I’d yell at you,'” Lynde said. “But I think you guys are a little seasoned now, so you should be able to know what’s wrong.’ And we understood what he was trying to say.”
“The starting five now has been together since as long as I can remember,” Hesse said. “So we have the chemistry.”
And after winning a district title together in their seven-loss season as sophomores, they don’t plan on losing any as seniors. “We’re trying to make it all the way,” Mundy said.
“I think we’ve got a good chance at a Final Four run if we stay focused and do what they’re able,” Eckhoff added.
And there’s no evidence this season to suggest they’re wrong as the Cardinals completed an undefeated 26-0 regular season.
