Mike Daum has been a threat on the inside and outside for Kimball this season, and hopes to lead the Longhorns back to the state tournament in Lincoln.
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Much like the reputation that has followed him along the way,
Kimball forward
Mike Daum went big time once again last weekend in guiding the Longhorns to conference wins over Lincoln Journal Star Class C-2 ratings contender Bridgeport and Gordon-Rushville.
The 2012-13 Western Trails Player of the Year scored 37 points in a 65-53 win over the archrival Bulldogs Friday, and followed it up with a school-record 41 points Saturday in a 73-55 triumph over the Mustangs.
"It's funny we should talk this weekend," Longhorns coach Bruce Tjosvold said Sunday morning. "He had a really big weekend."
The 6-foot-10 Daum, who has a wing span a country mile wide, tore it up from beyond the arc, connecting on eight of 17 3-pointers collectively in the two contests. He also made 10 of 11 charity tosses, grabbed 31 rebounds and was credited with an assist, five steals and four blocked shots in the two wins.
The 78-point windfall improved Daum's season scoring average to 26 points through 10 games. Daum is also averaging 11.6 rebounds, 2.8 steals and 3.5 blocks in 2013-14 and has made 26 of 65 shots from beyond the arc.
Mike Daum, Kimball
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"I guess games like that just put me in another mode," Daum said of his hot hand last weekend. "When I know my team is counting on me to step up, I guess that's just what I do. It's weird. I'm just trying to be a player that people can rely on."
Tjosvold has not been shy about using Daum at crunch time. No need to cover it up. Everybody in the world knows where he is going with the basketball. The challenge is for Kimball's opposition to slow Daum down.
"He has great hands. We can throw it in to him and he'll catch the ball and turn and shoot without putting the ball on the floor," Tjosvold said. "He has so many moves and he has the softest hands in the world. If we get the ball in to him, good things are going to happen."
A seven-time Runza Player of the Game by KSID radio a year ago, Daum's tales of greatness have been on display throughout gymnasiums in Nebraska's panhandle since he was in the sixth grade — when he scored a career-high 44 points in a game.
But last March, Daum guided Kimball to the Nebraska Class C-1 boys state basketball tournament in Lincoln, opening the doors for the rest of the state to watch Tjosvold's "Daum-inating" force score from all over the floor and control the boards.
Daum, who is shooting 49-percent from the floor for the year, didn't disappoint. After scoring 60 points in three games during the state tournament weekend, including a 30-point outburst in a 56-50 consolation loss to Wayne, he was selected to the state tournament's All-Tourney teams by both the Omaha World Herald and the Lincoln Journal Star.
Kimball's fourth-place finish a year ago dropped the western Nebraska power's 2012-13 record to 21-3 and allowed for a large appetite for even greater postseason success in 2014.
Mike Daum, Kimball
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"It was awesome," Daum said of his state tournament experience. "It was great being from a small town and getting to go to Lincoln to represent the teams from this side of the state. I expect to get back there again this year. I want to go there and compete with all of those outstanding basketball teams. We just have to stay level-headed. We have to stay humble and work hard."
Papillion, Neb. native Brian Cooley, a South Dakota State men's assistant basketball coach, caught wind of Daum's roundball prowess and passed his knowledge onto Jackrabbit head coach Scott Nagy.
After he and Cooley watched Daum compete in an AAU basketball tournament in Las Vegas last summer, while he was playing for the Rocky Mountain Fever, Nagy said he knew enough of Daum to know that he could really shoot the basketball.
"We really love his size and his length," Nagy said. "We could see he would cause matchup problems. I built this program around bringing in big guys that can shoot the basketball, so we could see that we'd be a pretty good fit for him. Most of our bigs are skilled offensively. We have big guards and we like to post them up. We're all about creating matchup problems."
Nagy pursued the 2013 Class C-1 first team all-stater and eventually offered Daum a scholarship. Daum accepted and signed a national letter of intent after considering other offers from Air Force, Hartford, Idaho State, Lehigh, Nebraska-Omaha, Northern Colorado, South Dakota and Wyoming.
"It was a combination of the coaches, the players and the location," Daum recalled. "I obviously had a great relationship with the coaches during the summer. As I was playing and scrimmaging with the players something caught my eye. I just knew this is where I was supposed to go."
