RAPID CITY – Groton is back in the State A boys’ basketball tournament for the third straight year and the fourth time in the past five years.
And while so much is the same – the roster, for example – much is also different. For starters, the roster, so familiar to the Tiger community, is a year older, a year more experienced.
Even the face manning the sidelines is at once familiar and fresh. Greg Kjellsen has guided the Tigers back to the state tournament this season, nearly a decade after he retired from the same position in 2016.
“For me, it’s pretty exciting,” Kjellsen said. “I think my sons might even be more excited. It’s one of the things you try to do when you’re coaching basketball is get to the state tournament. It’s a highlight. In communities our size, they take pride in those sort of things.”
Groton enters the state tournament as the No. 5 seed after finishing seventh a year ago. The Tigers return essentially the same roster as that 2025 squad, but with a different offensive philosophy under Kjellsen’s guidance.
“(Defensively), we were pretty good coming in,” Kjellsen noted. “(Former) Coach (Brian) Dolan did a great job. Defense wasn’t our main concern. Offensively, I had a little different philosophy. We didn’t try to shoot as many threes and we tried to work the ball inside a little more.”
That offensive style was a halting progress early on, but Kjellsen said as the perimeter guys steadily bought into the process, feeding forwards Becker Bosma and Gage Sippel, the Tigers offense became more potent and more balanced. And that is tough to stop.
“We had four kids average in double figures,” Kjellsen said. “We very seldom had anybody in the 20s and 30s, it was always 15, 16, 17 between two or three guys, sometimes four. It’s a nice thing when you don’t have to rely on one guy to carry you.”
Groton also begins this year’s state event against a very familiar foe – fellow Northeast Conference member Hamlin, whom the Tigers bested 55-50 in the season opener.
But Kjellsen also knows that game, nor any other, won’t mean much when it comes to tournament play.
“OK, we beat Hamlin the first game of the year,” he said. “I know they’re a completely different team. They’ve got a freshman that didn’t play a whole lot against us the first game of the year that’s starting for them (now). You can throw the 20 games we practiced out the window and if you’re not ready to play your best, you’re not going to get it done.”
Kjellsen believes his team has what it takes to meet the challenge of state tournament play head on.
“They work hard and they want to be better. That’s what it takes,” he said. “The old saying, ‘are you willing to do what it takes to win? Do you have the will to win?’” Well, these kids do. It’s been such a fun year.”
