THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Ready for the Grind — Spiced with a North Idaho flavor, Liberty Lake’s MODE Prep enters the national prep school boys basketball circuit

When last we checked in with MODE Prep, the fledgling prep school boys basketball team in Liberty Lake had a dream and a plan, but no players. 

Five months later ... 

“I would tell you I’ve never been more busy, coaching," said Jon Adams, the former Coeur d’Alene High boys basketball coach, who is director of the MODE Prep program, and head coach of its national team. “It is still amazing that four, five months ago this was an idea, and now it’s real. And we really have brought it to fruition. 

“And putting a team together is just one piece of it,” he added. “And on top of it, you’re schooling kids, you’re housing kids, you’re having to come up with jerseys, web sites, social media, everything. 

“It’s a lot of work, but to me, it’s not work. It’s really fun to build something from nothing.” 

With a coaching staff and a couple of players with North Idaho ties, MODE Prep began practicing on Sept. 15, and plays in its first tournament next weekend, Oct. 2-4 in Hopkinsville, Ky. 

MODE PREP is part of the Grind Session, which is sponsored by adidas. The other big circuit in prep school basketball is EYBL, sponsored by Nike. 

Some of the big prep schools are in EYBL, some are in the Grind Session. And it can change from year to year. 

“They (adidas) really pursued us, which is pretty cool and not common for a first-year program,” Adams said. “They came up and evaluated what we have to offer, as far as resources, facilities, housing ... that coupled with, they liked our staff, they liked the financing behind what we do. And they said, we really wanted a team in the Grind Session from that area. There isn’t a large prep team anywhere in the Northwest that plays on the Grind Session tour.” 

There are three divisions on the Grind Session circuit, and the goal of MODE Prep is to play in the top division. The tournament in Kentucky is a play-in tournament of sorts. How MODE Prep plays will be a factor in what division it ends up in, though not the only factor. 

“I think we’ve got a really good chance of playing in the top division,” Adams said. “They want us in the top division, and they’ve seen our roster, and they’ve given us a good indication we’ll be in the top division.” 

But ... 

“We’ve got to show up and play well,” Adams said with a laugh. 

ADAMS SAID some 60 percent of MODE Prep’s schedule consists of tournaments against other Grind Session teams.  

The rest of the schedule consists of other prep tournaments, and one-off games. 

MODE Prep plans to play in the prep school division of the Tarkanian Classic in Las Vegas, a tourney Adams took his Coeur d’Alene team to play in a high school division. 

There are also a number of other exposure tournaments MODE Prep will play in, where it could face some EYBL schools. 

Also, MODE Prep also plans to play a home-and-home with Elite Prep of Seattle, the nearest and really only other prep school in the Northwest.  

Adams said MODE Prep will play two games at North Idaho College against Northwest Athletic Conference foes to be determined. The home game with Elite Prep might be there as well, as MODE Prep’s on-campus sports complex, which will feature football and soccer fields, and basketball and volleyball courts, among other things, won’t be ready until next year. 

ORIGINALLY, MODE Prep was going to have three teams this year — two national-level prep teams (the second one more of a junior national team), and one that played at the high school level. 

But ultimately, MODE settled on one national team this year. 

“It’s still a 3-year-old school, and there’s not a lot of kids in the high school,” Adams said. “We started to run into the regulations of having a prep school and a high school team under the same roof really became challenging. You have to keep them very separate. Different websites, different athletic directors, different coaches, different facilities, everything.” 

The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association said only kids who were in the high school last year could play on a WIAA-sanctioned high school team. Anyone brought in this year could not play varsity for one year. 

As for one national prep team instead of two, “it just came down to resources,” Adams said. “A second team requires a second coach and a second schedule, and a second travel coordinator ... we just ran out of time. Believe me, it was not for a lack of players. We could have filled six or seven teams.” 

Next year, Adams said, the program will revisit having three teams. 

AS FOR recruiting, MODE Prep coaches reached out to prospective players via social media.  

Adams said college coaches in the Northwest were “champing at the bit for this” — to have a prep school in the region where they could “place” players and easily watch them develop. 

Some of the players MODE Prep were interested in recruited other players. And there are “handlers” who help steer international players to prep schools. 

Of the 10 players on the MODE Prep roster, four are international, including Abdoul-Aziz Sow, 6-7 from Germany, class of 2027, who was MODE’s first signee, in July. 

MODE Prep is in discussions with other players, including one ranked in the top-50 in the U.S. 

Two of the players on the roster are transfers from Utah Prep Academy in Hurricane, Utah. And two members of the MODE Prep staff are formerly from Utah Prep, and have helped provide guidance as the Liberty Lake school begins its new journey. 

“I was thinking, we have to have all these kids signed before school starts ... they said no you don’t,” Adams said. “You’re going to add kids throughout the year. You might get a kid in January transfer to you (and would be immediately eligible to play, presuming they meet eligibility standards). They can transfer immediately. They said even throughout the year, you will add kids.”

Players are staying in a renovated home near the campus; the house has two RAs. The players take care of the house; players’ moms come into town and cook meals for the players, and sometimes community members do the same. 

Adams hired former University of Idaho standout Deon Watson Sr. and former Post Falls High star Scott Stockwell as assistant coaches on the national team. Roles are not clearly defined yet, Adams said, though Watson, father to Division I athletes Deon Jr., Anton and Haile, works with the bigs in practice. Stockwell works more with the guards, and also focuses on the team’s defense. Adams is in charge of the team’s offense. 

A TYPICAL day for a MODE Prep basketball player includes an hour of strength training and conditioning with Vaea Fiefia, a couple of hours of school, followed by skill development with Anthony Rice, who works at Dan Dickau’s Shoot 360 in Spokane, more school, then two and a half hours of practice at the HUB Sports Center in Liberty Lake. 

There are two players on the roster who were in Adams’ program at Coeur d’Alene High last year — sophomores Collin Simon and Hudson Reid. 

Simon played up on the Viking junior varsity last year. Reid is the son of Scott Reid, COO of MODE Prep, who helped bring Adams in as head coach of the national prep school program. 

Adams said Simon and Reid were likely going to be on MODE Prep’s second-level national team. This year, they’re on the top squad, practicing against the best. 

“We want those kids in the program,” Adams said. “Are they going to be national players next year? Who knows? But they are this year. They are getting a better tutorial than you can get anywhere, playing with these top national players.” 

Adams said he was told one advantage MODE Prep has over some other prep schools is they already had the infrastructure in place before starting the basketball program. 

“A lot of these prep programs, they will build the team and then start figuring out the other stuff,” Adams said. “Luke (Kjar, founder and executive director of Liberty Launch Academy), intentionally, did it the exact opposite.” 

Most tournaments MODE Prep will play in are as far away as the East Coast. The goal for MODE is to qualify for the Chipotle Nationals (for Grind Session schools) in Texas in March. 

Adams said they are looking to have a schedule and roster on the website (modeathletes.com) soon, as well as links where fans can watch MODE play in tournaments. 

According to its website, MODE Sports is rooted in the Danish word mode, which means "to gather with purpose."

“In April we gathered, and we’ve kind of manifested MODE," Adams said. "This was an idea, could we really pull this off this year? And here we are, we’re getting ready to play in a tournament.  

“It’s real, we’ve made it.” 

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 1205, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @CdAPressSports. 

    Courtesy photo MODE Prep national team head coach Jon Adams, center, gives instruction at a recent practice.