All according to plan

Editor's Note: This is the first of a series of profiles of Sander's County graduating athletes who will be competing in college next year.

Position your body on the low post close to the basket. Make yourself a big target. Receive the ball. Turn and face the defender. Drop step toward the basket. Shoot a baby hook shot by keeping your body between the ball and the defense. Score two points.

Basketball can be a game of intricacy with a thousand decisions and moves resting between victory and defeat.

It can be a lot to think about.

Editor's Note: This is the first of a series of profiles of Sander's County graduating athletes who will be competing in college next year.

Position your body on the low post close to the basket. Make yourself a big target. Receive the ball. Turn and face the defender. Drop step toward the basket. Shoot a baby hook shot by keeping your body between the ball and the defense. Score two points.

Basketball can be a game of intricacy with a thousand decisions and moves resting between victory and defeat.

It can be a lot to think about.

Lucky for Trent Thompson, recent Plains graduate, that is exactly what he likes about it.

"[In basketball] you have to be well-disciplined, and you have to know what you're going to do," explains Thompson. "You have to be meticulous in where you're going and what you're going to do."

It's a fascination for analyzing both his play on the court and his studies in school. This upcoming school year, he'll be majoring in engineering at Montana Tech of the University of Montana in Butte where he'll also be playing basketball for the school's team.

It's this combination of an analytical mind and athletic prowress that made Thompson such a highly-recruited student for the school. After receiving an academic scholarship covering half of his tuition, the school offered him an athletic scholarship covering the other half of his tuition and all of his fees.

Even though he credits a lot of his athletic success, during his senior season in high school he averaged 12.8 rebounds and 19 points per game, to his meticulous mind Thompson by no means received the shallow end of the gene pool athletically.

Thompson stands at a healthy 6'7" and has a muscular frame that can bang down low with the heftiest of bruisers or sprint down the court with the most nimble of big men.

He also had the benefit of being the third boy in an athletic family and having two older brothers simultaneously put him through the ringer in family competition and pave the way for athletic success after high school, one in basketball and the other in baseball.

His brother, Mitch, is a year older and just finished his first year playing basketball at the University of Montana Western and the sibling rivalry between him and Trent has gone a long way for the little brother.

"He's helped me quite a bit. Actually thinking about it, he's actually helped me from the age of about seven until now, because there is always that competition," explains Trent.

It could also explain his early development as a Plains Horseman basketball player. His first varsity start during his freshmen year Trent had 20 points and 21 rebounds and made a miraculous halfcourt shot just seconds before halftime.

Although, admittedly lucky at the time, the shot could now be viewed as an omen for the Horsemen of the arrival of Thompson who impacted the team so heavily during his high school tenure.

Along with being named to the all-state team twice, Trent has been the driving force in the middle of the Plains team nearly catapaulting the Horsemen to the state tournament last year and this year. Last year's campaign came one lay-up short and this year ,the team finished in third place after coming all the way back from a first game loss in Divisionals.

That last game for Plains happened nearly four months ago and after it was over in typical fashion Trent went straight to the video tapes where he began analyzing not just the last game, but the whole season, and he already formulated a plan on what he wants to work on and what's important in the college game.

Along with the intangible qualities he has, being teachable and a team player, Trent sees the college game as more focused on defense with a lot of running and intensity. This he says turned out perfectly for him since the Horsemen made their living on playing tough defense.

Trent got the chance to demonstrate his tough defense when he played at an open gym in Butte a few weeks ago. Playing against three of the varsity starters, Trent had eight steals, a couple block shots and outrebounded the three starters.

It was a promising sign for Trent before he heads to Butte this fall where he'll start the next chapter of his life, studying engineering and studying basketball.