DULUTH EAST BASKETBALL COACH CHUCK TOLO TALKS ABOUT THE SEASON AHEAD AND GUARD DYAMI STARKS

I asked Duluth East’s head boys basketball coach Chuck Tolo to fill me in on the upcoming basketball season and his thoughts on Dyami Starks:

Our overall expectations are to immediately improve our defense and to be in the section 7AAAA mix with teams like Blaine, Forest Lake and Cambridge.

We are very young and the core of our team is underclassmen. But the majority of our players went through their growing pains last year. A major strength of our team is that many of our key players put in a lot of time this summer and have made great improvement.

We are an independent so we do not play in a conference but like I said earlier, we aspire to play with the top teams in our section.

Dyami Starks works tirelessly at trying to improve his overall game. When we did individual evaluations after last season, we talked about many parts of his game that he needs to improve upon. He really worked hard at improving his weaknesses and making the strong parts of his game even stronger.

Dyami sacrificed a lot of exposure this summer to predominantly stay in Duluth and work out with his teammates. He wants to have a successful season at Duluth East this year.

Dyami is a gifted shooter, one of the best if not the best that I have ever coached. What I continue to stress to Dyami is that he needs to become a complete player. He is definitely working hard on all aspects of his game. Dyami is becoming a strong leader and is the captain of our squad this season.

I believe that we will go as far as Dyami is able to lead us. The more he gets his teammates involved, the tougher we are going to be. I know that Dyami is getting a ton of D1 interest. Whoever gets him is going to be lucky in the long run.

You have to keep remembering that Dyami is still only a junior and he has a long ways to go. But his potential and upside are huge.