DTX Basketball

DTX would like to congratulate KAITLYNN KENNA on being selected to two state all star teams!

One being the New England Preparatory School Girls Basketball Association (NEPSGBA) all star game and the other all-star game was the JCC classic played on Saturday where she scored 8 points and was able to compete with some of the best players in the state, many who, like Kaitlynn at IONA, will be playing at Division I schools next year.

Kaitlynn has what every great player has. That “it” factor and required work ethic. We have had dozens and dozens of workouts recently and it has expedited her development!! She has improved SO MUCH recently!!

I told Kaitlynn in the Fall that I believed she could play Division I basketball and she believed me and put the required work in. What is essential for a player to overachieve and become a collegiate basketball player is to live the ATHLETE’S LIFESTYLE!

I challenge Kaitlynn often on her “off the court” habits and making sure she does not have any distractions and is singularly focused! She needs to STUDY the game by watching a lot of film!! 90% of the athletes can’t live that lifestyle for various reasons. Kaitlyn is!!!

I am so proud of Kaitlynn because she asked to play this Spring against the guys in order to be ready for the Division I rigors!! She will be playing and working all Spring against the boys and this will prepare her for the level of play she will need to display next year. Many women would never want to play against guys or they would prefer to relax and do nothing after their HS senior season. Not Kaitlynn!!! She has a dream and this goal can only be achieved with an exceptional work ethic.

Kaitlynn has enormous potential!! She has the required desire and passion, and she wants this bad. Her secret weapon is she has great parents that allow her to do the work and support her. Many parents get in the way, not the parents of successful players.

The work for playing college basketball starts the DAY AFTER the high school season ends!!! Those that understand this, succeed. Those that delay their work and look for a break, are not real college players. Real players take no days off!

DTX would like to…once again….CONGRATULATE JACK PLESSER ON YET ANOTHER POST SEASON AWARD, as he has been named TO THE NABC SECOND TEAM ALL-AMERICAN!!!

Jack was selected as the third player in Union College men’s basketball history to earn All-America honors from the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) with a spot on the All-America second team!!!
 
Jack is just the third Union player since the NABC started bestowing All-America honors in 1977 to earn All-America recognition from the coaches association!! Jack is Union’s first player to receive the NABC honor before his senior year and is Union’s first All-American as a junior since Jim Tedisco in 1972.

Jack ended the year sixth on Union’s all-time single-season scoring list with 566 points and his 22.6 ppg average is fifth-best ever by a Union player. He also tied for fourth in single-season field goals (214) and sixth in free throws (128) as well.
 
With a season still to go, Jack already ranks 14th in program history with 1,263 points and his 16.4 ppg scoring average currently is ninth-best among Union players all-time.

Jack has already had an amazing career. What people don’t truly understand is how great a player Jack is but now they do!!! THE BEST IS YET TO COME JACK…TRUST ME!!!!

The DTX honors keep rolling in as we would like to congratulate TOMMY SCHOLL on being named to the DISTRICT 4 SECOND TEAM!!!

Tommy was a scoring machine all season for the Ducks, reaching double figures in every game, with his average remaining above 17 points per game the entire season. He scored at least 20 in 12 games, including three separate instances of back-to-back contests. He hit at least three 3-pointers in 13 games while making more than 35 percent of his long-distance attempts. He also pulled down at least seven rebounds 16 times and at least 10 rebounds on four occasions, notching double-doubles in each instance. He capped his monster year averaging 21 points and 5.7 rebounds over the team’s three postseason games between the MAC Freedom Tournament (earning Tournament MVP Honors) and NCAA Championships

Congrats Tommy! You are once in a generation type of role model and teammate. I can’t thank you enough for speaking to our kids and demonstrating what a DTX player looks like. I appreciate you and we are so proud of you. Keep up the great work brother!!!

DTX would like to congratulate JACK PLESSER on being named to the DISTRICT 3 FIRST TEAM!!!

Jack was a consensus first-team selection to both the D3hoops.com All-Region and National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) All-District teams

Jack is Union’s first All-Region first-team selection since 2017 and just the fourth in program history to earn first-team laurels from both D3hoops.com and the NABC. The 2025-26 Liberty League Player of the Year, he averaged 22.6 points per game to lead the Liberty League in scoring by 3.5 ppg and finished 23rd in Division III in both scoring average and field goals made thanks to a conference-best 55.3 percent (214 of 387) field-goal percentage. The junior also ended the year second among conference players in both rebounding (7.6 rpg) and blocks (37), as well as third in free-throw percentage (76.2 percent). On the season, Jack scored double figures in 24 of 25 games, highlighted by six games with 30+ points and 15 games with 20 or more points to go along with seven double-doubles.

Jack is also one of 11 finalists for the 2026 Jostens Trophy recognizing the most outstanding Division III basketball player of the year!!! That announcement will come on Thursday!!!

What a year for Jack and we could not be more proud!!! This is what happens when a player does the work and trusts the process!!! You will be playing this game for a long time after you graduate, if you choose to.

DTX would like to congratulate COLIN BAKER on accepting an offer to play college basketball at Paul Smith’s college.

Colin is a “brother from a different mother” in that he plays in Guam and has attended my numerous camps there and stayed in touch through the years.

He also played for the Tokyo Samurai which is another brother program with us.

Colin always plays hard and is known as a shooter with athletic quickness! Colin is a very passionate player that always had aspirations of playing college basketball and now that dream has come true.

We are very proud of his efforts and how much he has done to accomplish this goal. You must sacrifice and do more than just the required work when you are playing in Guam. Colin knew this and did what was necessary.

Coach Jimmy has done a fantastic job preparing him for this level and deserves a lot of the credit!

I am very proud of our relationship with Guam and the kids of that great area. Coach Jimmy and I work well together and hope to send more players from Guam to college.

Continue to grind Colin and prepare for the upcoming season and understand that your first impression is always the most important. So keep working and be at your best when you show up day 1! We are very excited for you!

DTX would like to congratulate CALISTA BICKERS on accepting her offer to play college basketball at STEVENS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY!!!

This means every player on the DTX women’s team has committed to playing college basketball, which is a huge accomplishment!

We are quite familiar with that University as we have sent multiple players there and I am on record saying it is one of the most beautiful campuses, overlooking the Hudson and minutes from Manhattan!!

Calista has only been playing for us since the Fall season and constantly stayed in touch during her High School season and she has improved exponentially in a very short time!!!

Calista stands at 6’3” and has a HUGE upside!! She only recently started playing basketball coming from Germany so her lack of experience in the sport is why she has so much potential.

Her ability to set screens and play physical is great. What is exceptional is the fact that she is a great teammate and has a great work ethic.

It’s impressive how she asked to play this Spring after her senior season so she can get better! Most players would not and prefer to just relax and not do the required work!! That is why THEY WILL NOT PLAY MUCH!!! She will play against the boys this Spring and do workouts in order to follow in the DTX tradition of having players ready to play in college their freshman year!!! She will start working on developing her post game in preparation of her upcoming college season and based on her previous examples of putting in the required work, she will improve tremendously.

We are so excited to see how much Calista will develop this Spring and Summer and it’s our objective to get her as prepared and ready to play when she arrives on campus DAY 1. We will teach her the collegiate athlete’s lifestyle!!!

Continue to do the work Calista and trust the process! The sky is the limit!!!

It was GREAT seeing DTX GRADUATE ASTON SYLVESTER at the gym last weekend. Aston is a contributing member of the Rose-Hulman basketball team and will be in his senior season next year.

It is always great to have a former player that grew up in the program be able to speak to the next generation of DTX players and to have him speak at our skills camp was an honor and I so appreciate it.

Aston is one of the hardest working, determined players we have ever had at DTX!!!

When he first arrived he was an absolute beginner and continued to do the work and develop over the years into a COLLEGE BASKETBALL PLAYER!!

We are so blessed at DTX and take so much pride in the fact that we develop players. We do not recruit players that are already developed, for us…that is NOT pleasurable.

We get pleasure out of bringing in players at a young age and developing them into college players and we have had great success at doing that! Aston is an example of this.

Aston ALWAYS plays hard, always easy to coach, and always understood his role. He is just a fantastic teammate and player.

It is VERY CHALLENGING for a player to play 4 years of college basketball. It is a massive accomplishment for a player to put on their resume that they played 4 years of college basketball. Many players drop out for various reasons! For a player to be able to finish their career is something to be proud of for the rest of their life.

Like we always say, you can’t succeed in sports without parents that understand the process. This is the case with Aston who has 2 of the best parents a player could ask for. Never questioning the process and always being supportive.

We could not be more proud of Aston and look forward to seeing him again when he gets a break!!

DTX would like to congratulate DTX LEGEND JOSHUA REAVES for helping lead HOFSTRA reach the NCAA TOURNAMENT for the first time since 2001!!!!

This is the second such accomplishment for Josh, helping lead Mount St. Mary’s in his freshmen season to March Madness!!!

I could not be more proud of Josh! Having battled through so much, including very serious injuries, and still coming out on top, is an indication of his determination and commitment to the game and to himself!!!

Many players would have quit and not done the required rehab. That was never a consideration for Josh! He will be playing this game for a long time and his passion, intensity, effort, and love for the game can’t be surpassed. The special players we have had the privilege of coaching all have this in common.

What also makes us so proud is we coached Josh since he was 12!!! He rose through the ranks to greatness, developing every single season. Where many programs recruit players because they aren’t capable of developing talent, we are the opposite and Josh has always been in the family and developed from his 12u team to Division I GREATNESS!!! This makes us so proud!!!

Now we sit and wait to see where he will play in the tournament!!! I will be waking up very early in Tokyo to watch my brother!!! I CAN’T WAIT!!!

Keep being the man that you are Josh! We are so proud of the role model that you are for the program, always coming back and speaking to the next generation of kids! It proves the great man that you are, being influential to the younger generation is something very few can be, thank you for that!

I have received so many messages regarding Mateo’s success.

Many people apologized. lol.

Because I had said for years that I felt Mateo was a scholarship athlete. Many people doubted me, saying that I was just biased as his coach. I told people I knew in the 8th grade (phenom picture included) that Mateo had that intangible “it” factor. I have seen it many times before in very successful athletes. When you have been around as long as I have, running high level tournaments and camps all over the globe, you recognize those intangibles. They are rare and hard to find as a coach.

When we (coaches) find someone that we feel has that desire, passion, dream, work ethic, singular focus, we try and cultivate it.

We challenge these players not just on the court, but off the court. Do they have the “lifestyle”, the will to give everything up in their chase of this dream. Many fail when presented with these “off the court tasks”. Mateo did not! He is different! He has what I have seen before in the greatest of players!

This season proved that as he greatly overachieved and posted numbers many outside of his family and myself would have thought possible. I always thought it was very possible. Mateo always did what I said because he believed it would lead to greatness.

Mateo always wanted it so bad, nothing got in his way. It was basketball 24/7 and no distractions, no bad friends, no bad social life, just all basketball, all the time and he would never let anyone jeopardize that goal of playing at the highest levels.

Look at the numbers!!!! They DO NOT LIE!!! NATIONALLY RANKED!! And as the announcers for his game against Duke said numerous times, “HE IS THE BEST PLAYER ON THE FLOOR!”

Very proud of Mateo and know that he will only get better and better. He will be playing this game for a long time!!!

DTX would like to congratulate COACH CHARLIE CAIRO and JAYCEE MERIZALDE on winning the NE10 CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP for the first time since 2007 as Southern Ct beat Bentley 59-50!!!

What an amazing accomplishment and it’s great to have two DTX members be a part of the celebration!!! I also want to thank the coaching staff for hosting our girls program and speaking with the girls.

Now it is time to prepare for the NCAA TOURNAMENT as Southern Ct is a #1 SEED and will face St Michael’s on Friday!!! That is another massive accomplishment!

I speak with Charlie almost everyday and to see his growth from when we first met to now is exactly what I expected! Jaycee has ALWAYS stayed in touch with me through the years to this very day, reaching out and communicating constantly. This was even after she moved away to attend a prep school. We are always there for our former players and will always be a resource for any player, as long as they seek us out! The players that stay in touch will always benefit.

I coached both of them when they were younger and I was very hard on both of them. It is great to see them take the lessons they learned when they were younger and apply them to their later lives.

Of course, the reason why both of them are so successful is due to the fact that they have parents that understand the process and were patient and understood everything we did at DTX would lead to these types of moments. You can’t overachieve without great parents.

Thank you both for proving me right in my belief of you, as many before you have. The process continues and will continue for years to come!!!

On to FRIDAY!! Keep making us proud!!!

DTX would like to congratulate JACK PLESSER on being named the LIBERTY LEAGUE PLAYER OF THE YEAR!!!

Jack has developed so much since he first arrived at DTX. He bought in and completely trusted the process and now I believe he sees (finally) what I have seen for years, he is EXTREMELY TALENTED!!!

Jack is a 3-level scorer and an exceptional teammate. Jack will always sacrifice for the benefit of the team and he can play multiple positions. His 6’9” reach is what separates him from most players as that is very serious metric!

If Jack so chooses, he will be playing this game for quite a while and we are always actively looking to communicate with scouts and agents overseas in preparation for many of our players that have aspirations of playing at the highest levels.

Jack is not only a great player, but a great student and great member of his community! There is no better person than Jack Plesser!!! We are blessed at DTX that we have so many exceptional people in our FAMILY that graduated from the program.

It gives us great pleasure to know we have kids that come to us early and we develop them into next level players. Many programs recruit and try and bring in players that are already developed. We bring in young, inexperienced players and DEVELOP them! That gives us the ultimate pride!! We like having 17u players that began with us at earlier ages and rise through the ranks!!! We do NOT recruit!!!

Congrats Jack, we are excited to see your continued development and where your future leads.