Wieskamp has career night
Muscatine high school was packed to the rafters on Friday night as two of the top high school basketball players in the state were slated to go head to head on the court.
It was Muscatine vs. Bettendorf, but it was also future Hawkeye Joe Wieskamp facing off with 2019 standout guard D.J. Carton, who is a top priority for Iowa on the recruiting trail.
Throw in the fact that Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery was in the house to watch in-person while his team was already at Penn State and Wieskamp was closing in on the all-time scoring mark in Class 4A in the state of Iowa and all the ingredients were there for a special evening.
The game itself wasn’t exceptionally close, with Muscatine pulling away for a 64-50 win. What was special was the performance by Wieskamp, who outscored the Bulldogs on his own, pouring in 54 of his team’s 64 points.
“I was just happy to get the win tonight. We have a great crowd tonight and we have had great support from our community,” Wieskamp said.
It’s hard to say what was more impressive tonight, Wieskamp’s overall game or the fact that he scored the first 31 points for the Muskies. During that stretch in the first half, where he had all 25 points for his team, he knocked down 5 three pointers from just about everywhere on the court.
“I think I was just in one of those zones, you could say. I was just in one of those grooves that you find yourself in every once in a while. It just felt like every shot was going in.”
Of course, every historic performance has some sort of interesting backstory to tell and Wieskamp’s career night has one as well. His future teammate, Patrick McCaffery, had the night off, so he made the trip. Earlier in the afternoon, the 2019 four star forward sent Wieskamp a text with a request.
“He (Patrick) sent me a text and he said he wanted to see me score 50 tonight since he was going to be here,” Wieskamp said. “So, when I scored my 50th point tonight, I pointed to him in the stands.”
The senior guard is now just 31 points away from becoming the all-time leading scorer in Class 4A history in the state of Iowa. He will get his shot to break Jeff Horner’s mark on Tuesday night when the Muskies host Burlington. What’s interesting is Wieskamp’s previous career high of 50 points came against the Greyhounds in December of 2016.
“It’s pretty special to be this close to the record, but I’m really just happy we picked up the win tonight. I’m looking forward to the game against Burlington and hopefully getting another win and if the record happens, then it happens.”
Incidentally, if you were wondering about Carton, the four star point guard in the Class of 2019, scored 24 points in the loss, which is just below half of Bettendorf’s total. The talented guard had a pretty solid game, but it was nothing like the show that Wieskamp put on in Muscatine on Friday evening.
