After pouring through oodles of statistics, all-state, all-conference and all-area teams, last year's state tournament bracket and plenty of postseason rankings, we have uncovered our Twin Valley Conference projections for 2025-26.
Red Cloud won 11 straight basketball games during the middle stretch of the 2024-25 basketball season but lost four of its final five contests to conclude the season at 15-7. The Warriors, however, appear to have the best Twin Valley Conference roster in 2025-26, including arguably the Conference's top hoopster.
Gage Ely is back on Josh Sholtz's roster after knocking down 20.3 points and reeling in 8.6 rebounds a game as a junior. A Second Team Class D2 All-State selection by both the Omaha World Herald and the Lincoln Journal Star, the 6-foot-2 guard added 74 assists, 61 steals and eight blocked shots to his stat line.
Junior Mason Bolin joined Ely in double figures last winter after averaging 11 points and seven boards a contest. The 6-foot-4 power forward was also credited with 57 assists, 41 steals and 37 blocked shots while senior Conner Rust and junior Lukas Armstrong averaged 6.2 and 7.2 points a game respectively.
Silver Lake produced the conference's top record a year ago and punched its ticket to the Class D2 State Basketball Tournament before falling 50-34 to eventual champion St. Mary's in the quarterfinals. The Mustangs do return a couple of key players from last year and are more than capable of making another run to the state tournament and proving us wrong.
Senior Landon Duester returns for Shaun Fisher in 2025-26. The 6-foot-3 power forward/center buried Mustang foes with 12.7 points and 5.9 rebounds a contest a year ago while senior Beau Bonifas added 6.1 points and 2.5 boards on average last year.
Enough of my rambling. Enjoy!
