{"id":52598,"date":"2020-07-21T20:52:07","date_gmt":"2020-07-22T02:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/whiteskunk-continues-basketball-career-at-midland-university\/"},"modified":"2020-07-22T02:52:07","modified_gmt":"2020-07-22T02:52:07","slug":"whiteskunk-continues-basketball-career-at-midland-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/whiteskunk-continues-basketball-career-at-midland-university\/","title":{"rendered":"Whiteskunk continues basketball career at Midland University"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Teagan
Teagan Whiteskunk, front center, signed a National Letter of Intent to play college basketball at Midland University in Nebraska this summer while surrounded by his family at Montezuma-Cortez High School.<\/span>Courtesy of David Robinson<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The 6-foot-1 guard from Montezuma-Cortez High School accomplished that goal when he signed this summer with Midland University, an NAIA college based in Fremont, Nebraska<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Whiteskunk will play under head coach Oliver Drake, who guided the Warriors to the NAIA Division II National Championship Tournament in 2017. It was the Warriors\u2019 fifth national tournament in program history.<\/p>\n

\u201cMidland reached out to me a lot more than other schools. They caught my interest,\u201d said Whiteskunk, who was unable to visit the campus because of the COVID-19 pandemic and a recruiting dead period that would not allow coaches to visit players or for recruits to take visits to schools. \u201cI\u2019m excited because I\u2019m still going to play basketball. That\u2019s what I love to do. I didn\u2019t want to do anything after high school except play basketball, so them reaching out to me and giving me this opportunity is real exciting for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Teagan
Teagan Whiteskunk was always dangerous with the ball in his hand for Montezuma-Cortez High School.<\/span>Joel Priest\/Pine River Times file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Montezuma-Cortez&#x2019;s
Montezuma-Cortez&#x2019;s Teagan Whiteskunk (30) twists his way around Bayfield&#x2019;s Larenz Wilbourn and to the basket during a 2020 game in Cortez.<\/span>Joel Priest\/Pine River Times file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Whiteskunk, who said he will study business management, had talked with a few other schools, including NCAA Division II Adams State in Alamosa. But it was Midland that stuck with him through his entire senior season in which he averaged 18 points and nearly four rebounds and three assists to go with two steals per game. That backed up a junior season in which he averaged 17.3 points, 4.7 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game and again had two steals per contest.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe knows how to score the ball,\u201d Montezuma-Cortez head coach Mike Hall said. \u201cThat\u2019s never been an issue for him from freshman to senior year. He\u2019s a good kid, a leader and always held people to the same kind of caliber he always performed at. He held people accountable and made practices much more fun as a coach. His competitive level was always high.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a great opportunity for him to get out of Cortez for a bit and have a new experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hall said he has witnessed Whiteskunk put in the time this summer working on getting bigger and stronger. Adjusting to the speed of the college game and improving his work on defense has been a big focus.<\/p>\n

\"A
A relentless scorer, Teagan Whiteskunk (30) found ways over and around his opponents during his four years as a Monutezma-Cortez guard. Now, he&#x2019;s off to play college basketball at Midland University in Nebraska.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Though Whiteskunk had many big moments on the court for the Panthers, he said his fondest memories of high school hoops came before and after games connecting with his teammates and his older brother, Brackin, who was an assistant coach on the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to watch my brother play high school basketball, and it was a dream for me,\u201d Whiteskunk said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t get the chance to go on and play college, but he wanted me to, and now here I am getting the opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last season, the Warriors went 10-17 overall and 6-14 in the Great Plains Athletic Conference. Midland carries a large roster of 25 players and did not have a senior on last year\u2019s team with only one junior.<\/p>\n

With so many returning players, Whiteskunk will have to work hard as a freshman, but that\u2019s something he\u2019s not afraid to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to get my foot in door and let them know I\u2019m doing whatever it takes to get a spot and help us win,\u201d Whiteskunk said. \u201cI\u2019m not going there just to play around. I am going to let them know I\u2019m there to play basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n

jlivingston@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whiteskunk, front center, signed a National Letter of Intent to play college basketball at Midland University in Nebraska this summer while surrounded by his family at Montezuma-Cortez High School.Courtesy of David Robinson The 6-foot-1 guard from Montezuma-Cortez High School accomplished that goal when he signed this summer with Midland University, an NAIA college based […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[600,992,36,29,2343],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-52598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-basketball","tag-college-sports","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-newsletter","tag-sports-group"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52598"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=52598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}