Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

CEDAR RAPIDS – Joe Wieskamp possess the full arsenal of a basketball skills.

Shooting, defending, ball handling, rebounding. The Muscatine standout and Iowa recruit can do it all.

On Saturday Wieskamp showed off all of those attributes along with another valuable trait, patience.

Wieskamp scored 35 of his 38 points in the final three quarters as Muscatine overcame an early 21-13 deficit to cruise past City High 76-57 at the inaugural Wells Fargo Advisors Shootout at the U.S. Cellular Center.

“I just try to take what is given to me and find the open man,” Wieskamp said. “Sometimes I have to force some shots but for the most part I have to stay patient, read the defense and find what’s open.”

One of the main attractions at the newly formed all-day hoops event in Cedar Rapids, Wieskamp didn’t disappoint on Saturday.

The 6-foot-6 senior grabbed 14 rebounds to go with his 38 points and went 13-of-18 from the field as Muscatine (7-5) snapped a three-game losing skid.

Keshawn Christian was impressive while scoring 23 points but it wasn’t enough to keep up with Wieskamp as City High dropped to 3-8 with its second loss in less than 24 hours.  

“Credit to him he’s such a great player and coming off a game last night there isn’t a lot of time to prep so we did the best we could in the walkthrough today,” City High coach Derek Roberts said. “I thought we did an o.k. job the first quarter but we definitely got away from our game plan and they took advantage of that.”

The plan for City High from the opening tip was to take Wieskamp out of the game as much as possible. It worked for a while.

Wieskamp scored three points on three field goal attempts in the first quarter while facing a constant double team with or without the ball in his hands.

Christian scored 11 of his team-high 23 points in the opening quarter and City High was 4-of-7 from 3-point range while taking a 21-13 lead after one quarter.

“They shot phenomenal in the first quarter,” Muscatine coach Gary Belger said. “Christian is a real good athlete, we did not expect him to be a great outside shooter and I think he hit two or three.”

The early patience from Wieskamp would only last for so long.

Wieskamp scored 15 points in the second quarter, including 10 in a 19-0 Muscatine run that spanned more than four minutes and turned a 29-20 City High lead into a 10-point deficit.

Muscatine made 9-of-11 field goal attempts in a 26-point second quarter led by Wieskamp who was 4-of-5 in the quarter.

“We gave them some open looks with miscommunication type things,” Roberts said. “They scored on three out of bounds plays in the first half and give them credit for executing that but we have to do a better job of being focused on those things and doing it for 32 minutes.”

The second half was all Muscatine and all Wieskamp.

Wieskamp scored the Muskies first 11 second half points and helped put the game away scoring six during a 13-0 run to close the third quarter.  

“Joe is going to be Joe,” Christian said. “It’s just hard to stop him.”

City High trailed just 46-42 following an Antonio Turner 3-pointer with 4:41 left but Wieskamp scored on back-to-back possessions to push the lead back to eight.

Bryce Howard then scored seven of his 15 points in a span of less than two minutes as Muscatine outscored City High 13-0 over the final 4:22 of the third quarter.

Howard finished 7-of-9 from the floor and was the only other Muscatine player in double figures but three other Muskies had at least five points.

“We had other guys step up,” Wieskamp said. “They tried to double team me and I was getting it to our guys on the weak side and he was able to find easy layups and our guys were converting.”

Wieskamp hit all three of his field goal attempts in the fourth quarter before checking out for good with just under three minutes to play.

“We just tried to get him tired, he basically played the whole game,” Christian said. “We tried to get him tired but that didn’t work. There is nothing really we can do it’s just Joe he’s really good.”

Muscatine shot 66 percent from the field and had four turnovers over the final three quarters.

Meanwhile City High was limited to 30 percent shooting over the final 24 minutes.

“We are close,” Belger said. “We are not a good team yet but we are close and we think we can still get there.”

Turner finished with 14 points and Carter Westlake had nine for City High which returns to action on Friday at Cedar Rapids Jefferson.

“We have stretches where we play really  well and we show really good strides and we just have to get back to the drawing board and get more consistent,” Roberts said. “That’s all there is to it, there’s no magic formula.

Muscatine    13  26  20  17  – 76 

City High     21  10  11  15  – 57

Muscatine (76) – Jose Melendez 2-3 1-2 5, Alexander Hahn 2-6 0-0 4, Josh Hutton 2-6 0-0 5, Jackson Foulk 3-5 0-0 7, Jose Martinez 1-1 0-0 2, Joe Wieskamp 13-18 8-9 38, Drew Logel 0-1 0-0 0, Bryce Howard 7-9 1-1 15, Noah Yahn 0-1 0-0 0, Team 30-50 10-12 76. 

City High (57)  – Antonio Turner 4-11 2-2 14, Luke Young 0-4 0-0 0, Carter Westlake 3-7 0-0 9, Jeremy Kambomba 0-1 0-0 0, DeAngelo McNeil 2-2 0-0 4, Keshawn Christian 7-16 6-7 23, Ry Threlkeld-Weigand 1-3 1-2 4, Quincy Wells 1-2 0-0 3, Jaycorde Hickman 0-1 0-0 0, Team 18-47 9-11 57. 

3-point field goals  – ICH 12-30 (Turner 4-8, Young 0-2, Westlake 3-7, Christian 3-8, Threlkeld-Weigand 1-3, Wells 1-2); MUS 6-13 (Melendez 0-1, Hutton 1-2, Foulk 1-2, Wieskamp 4-6, Logel 0-1, Yahn 0-1). Rebounds – ICH 23 (Young 4); MUS 28 (Wieskamp 14). Turnovers – ICH 10; MUS 8. Total fouls – ICH 13; MUS 12. Fouled out – None. Technical fouls – None.