(VIDEO) Trick Shot Artists Aim for ‘Nothing But Net’

It must be an odd sight for the average park visitor.

Six teens climb out of a minivan and drag out a battered portable basketball hoop. They haul the hoop to a corner of the park that couldn’t be less suited to basketball and weigh the hoop down with a rock.

Then the shots start coming. One comes from the top of a hill, another from playground equipment, another off a wall—each shot more spectacular than the last.

Eric Huss, Matthew Koopmeiners, J.T. DenHartog, Rory Ritts, Thomas Heegaard and Tyler Johnson are juniors who spend their free time making trick shot videos that they upload to a YouTube channel called NothingButNetAllDay. Hundreds of people have watched their videos—with one of the videos garnering more than 2,200 views.

The group got the idea while Huss, Rittz and Heegaard were goofing off at a local park. Huss made a lucky shot, and they decided to videotape one another making similarly improbable shots.

“It’s just something to do,” DenHartog said.

Yet putting together the videos involves a substantial amount of work and persistence. Although the videos feature numerous miracle shots crammed in to one- to two-minute clips, the teens often must endure countless failed shots to catch a single successful moment—an average of about 15 to 20 failed shots for each successful one.

The most difficult was a shot from a slide in Minnetonka’s that took three hours to nail. A man saw the boys while walking his dog through the park that morning. When he went to walk his dog again a couple hours later, he found them still at it.

Hefting basketballs and footballs so many times over long distances is also physically tiring. Three of the boys played baseball last summer. They’d spend part of the day making trick shots and then have to go to baseball practice and throw some more—something that didn’t exactly please their coach.

“You get pretty sore,” Huss said.

The teens have each developed their own specialties. Huss and DenHartog do the long shots. Johnson is the kicker. Rittz does backward and baseball shots. Koopmeiners does bounce shots. And Heegaard does the video work.

The sight of six teens hauling around a basketball hoop in a minivan can lead to misunderstandings. They’ve been asked to leave local parks, and police once showed up at their door.

Other people who find out about the videos are just skeptical that the shots are real, with some students suspecting camera trickery is involved.

But many responses have been positive. A Hopkins High School physics teacher showed one of the videos in class. A baseball coach showed off the video to his team.

The skills can also pay off in other arenas. Huss is two for two at buzzer beaters in his rec league.

The teens have already surpassed their initial goal of getting 1,000 views on a video. They’ve now set their sites on reaching 10,000 views.

That’ll mean cooking up some new shots. Once the weather warms up, they plan to try shots with a screaming Nerf football and balls bounced off a hill.

Of course, that will also mean plenty more sights for curious park visitors.

“People are kind of confused when we show up with the hoop and start setting up,” Huss said.