A night with a basketball scout

SPRING VALLEY - Basketball scouting in the digital world is as simple as logging into to your team’s Hudl account.

Craig Johnson prefers to scout old school, live and in person.

Johnson, the longtime Bureau Valley assistant and super scout, took his seat halfway up the bleachers for Saturday afternoon’s Princeton and Stillman Valley game in the Colmone Classic. He was armed with a note pad, tournament program, pencils and his usual keen observation eye for detail.

“I’ll look at film, but if I can I just think I get a better feel, even if I don’t take very many notes,” Johnson said.

He said he looks for strengths and weaknesses of players from the team(s) he’s scouting.

“Can he go left? Does he defend well? Any more you got to find shooters, so you’re always recognizing 3-point guys. Can they use their weak hand?” he said.

“I’ll go home and jot down some more notes.”

He saves out of bounds plays for film, because you can watch it multiple times.

Johnson prepares a scouting report for head coach Jason Marquis and they give it to the kids to look at when they get on the bus and say, “Look at it, see what you learn and anything unusual they do.”

He did scout Friday’s opponent, Erie-Prophetstown, by film, and said, “we knew they would run that trap, so we worked on that a little bit.”

Marquis said Johnson plays a big role on the Storm’s staff.

“Coach J is the total team player. He does all the dirty work that is not fun or not easy, especially for me, as an out of building coach,” Marquis said. “He models strong communication and superb commitment, and he always follows through on what he says he will get done. I’ve always thought that he is a wonderful model for our kids to see ‘go to work’ on a daily basis.

“He is the king of game prep. They say confidence comes through preparation, and our kids are confident because Coach J always has them prepared with a thorough scout.”

Marquis takes Johnson’s scouting as good as gold.

“He is great at determining our best match up. I don’t ever recall changing a Coach J assigned matchup mid-game. He’s always spot on,” Marquis said. “Typically, Coach J is verifying starters during warmups as well to make sure there are no changes to our opponent’s expected lineup.”

Johnson’s scouting days go back to working under former Storm coach Brad Bickett, noting that “Bick’s scouting report is probably better than what mine are.”

Bickett said Johnson is the best scout he knows and willing to go anywhere to give BV the advantage.

“He was the best at defining opposing team’s player personnel strengths and weaknesses,” Bickett said. “He always would suggest matchups best for our players at BV and loved to come into practice and reassure the guys what we were going to see from the team he scouted. He always had a good analysis of what the guys that went with him thought of the team as well.”

And as an added bonus, Bickett added, that Johnson was sure to provide the “best hot spot they stopped and ate at on the way home.”

During the Storm’s state tournament run of 2000-02, in which the Storm finished third three straight years, Johnson never saw their sectional games because he was busy scouting their opponent for the supersectional.

He did get to sit on the bench for the supersectional games because they saved scouting their state opponent later by film.

“Bick never scouted it. I always told him I’d go. He said, ‘Nope, we’ll worry about it afterward,’” Johnson said. “He’d throw a bunch of video tapes on my desk during the day and say, “Helms and I want a scouting report by the end of the day Monday or Tuesday. By Tuesday, we’d have our scouting report based off tape. Watching on a VCR tape was not fun.”

Johnson said his oldest son, Alex, a key member of the Storm’s 2015 regional champions, has picked up the trade of scouting and probably does a better job at it than his dad.