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Macke steps in as Colonials basketball coach

By Rob Burchianti 5 min read
article image - Kevin Kinder/BlueGoldNews.com
West Virginia’s Spencer Macke, a fan favorite who also was beloved by his teammates, is carried off the court after hitting a late 3-pointer in a lopsided win over Texas in January of 2020. Macke was hired as Albert Gallatin’s boys basketball coach after Shea Fleenor stepped down following this past season.

Shea Fleenor likely would’ve loved to have had Spencer Macke as a player on his Albert Gallatin basketball team.

Macke, a 23-year-old former West Virginia Mountaineer, built a reputation as a hard-working, get-the-most-out-of-your-ability player and he hopes to bring that mentality to the Colonials after he was hired to replace Fleenor, who stepped down after the 2023-24 season.

Fleenor stressed the qualities Macke has to all his AG players over his 12 years as coach.

Macke, who is on pace to earn his masters degree at WVU next month, didn’t garner a lot of playing time when he played under coach Bob Huggins but he became a fan favorite and was beloved by his teammates because of his work ethic.

Not surprisingly, Macke picked up a lot about defense from Huggins.

“I came into West Virginia as a really fundamentally sound offensive player,” Macke recalled. “I did not have the defense to where I needed to be. Coming in, seeing how Hugs implements defenses and the way he teaches it really opened my eyes. He was always preaching have pride in guarding your man, have pride in holding them to a certain number of points a game.

“He also showed me team defense, that it takes all five guys on the floor working together to create some stops.”

Macke takes over an Albert Gallatin team that was 9-11 this past season and fell one win short of reaching the postseason, falling in its regular-season finale. He is attacking his job with a positive attitude.

“I’m trying to show these kids at AG that I do believe in them, I do believe they can be good,” Macke said. “But they have to believe in themselves like I believe in them. I hope they have, or get some of that mentality I have, like trying to outwork each other.”

Macke attributes a lot of his positive traits to his upbringing.

“My mom and my dad instilled a good mentality and work ethic in me to where I’m trying to bust my butt every day trying to outwork people,” Macke said. “I was never gifted like some of those guys at the D-I level. I wasn’t some 6-8 specimen of a human. I was 6-1 and wasn’t crazy athletic. I wasn’t going to awe anyone jumping out of the gym so I had to work on being good in other areas, including having a high basketball IQ.

“Even though I was a practice player for the most part, I was one of those guys always early to practice and would stay later than anyone else. I’m hoping I can project that to our players.”

Macke has an idea of what kind of team he wants to put out on the court, which is to be fast paced on offense with a pressing defense.

“I kind of want a seven-second offense and I want to press the whole time,” Macke said. “But I’m not going to really finalize that until maybe another month of summer workouts. We’re going really hard five days a week right now so I’m really getting to know these kids. As a coach I think I’m going to have to adapt to the way they can play.

“If we can’t press, we can’t press, but I think we’ll be able to. I would like to play man half-court all the time. I don’t want a lot of plays, I want it to be quick. I want to try to aim for 12 to 13 kills (three defensive stops in a row) a game. That’s really what I’m trying to get across to them right now.”

Macke is still in the process of filling out his coaching staff.

“Right now Buddy Quertinmont is going to run the JV program and Justin Goletz is going to be one of my varsity assistants,” he said.

Macke will be the youngest high school coach in the area and is aware that may be perceived as a negative by some.

“You can look at me and think that I’m younger and don’t have any coaching experience, and that’s true,” Macke said. “But I told the players last week I will have a unique perspective because I am fresh out of the game so I know what I’m doing and have a lot of connections, and I can relate to them really well.

“Coming into it, that was something I was maybe worrying about, that I wasn’t going to get the respect that I need as a coach because I’m younger. But I haven’t found that to be a problem at all.

“I think it’s going to be a good experience for me because these kids are going to teach me some things moving forward in my coaching career and I’m also hopefully going to teach them a lot of things to help them improve in basketball and in life.”

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