Austin head boys basketball coach Kris Fadness hasn’t seen his full squad together very many times this summer, but this weekend he’ll get to see most of his projected Packer team for the upcoming season compete against the state’s best in St. Cloud, Minn.

“It’s been a little bit of hit and miss summer,” Fadness said. “We’ve only had most of our guys for a couple of tournaments.”

Austin was picked as a preseason top-four team in Class ‘AAA’ by Minnesota Basketball News and it will compete in the Pacesetter Sweet 16 along with the top four teams in each class in Minnesota this Saturday and Sunday.

The Packers open up with Fairmont at 11:20 a.m. Saturday. If Austin wins that game, it will take on the winner of Heritage Christian and Hopkins at 3:20 p.m.

Fadness said he has an idea of how his team will stack up against the top teams in the state, but he’s interested in seeing it firsthand.

“We’ve looked good against really quality competition this year and we should be in the top four or five in the state during the high school season,” Fadness said. “We’ll get a good gage of where we are are this weekend, and it’ll be fun to put a barometer on where we are at.”

While Joe Aase, Tom Aase, Zach Wessels, Collin Weisert and Bret Lukes have been busy playing AAU basketball this summer, the AHS team has still competed multiple times. The Packers took first in the Breakdown tournament in Rochester recently and they took second in a breakdown tournament in Lakeville South without the Aase’s or Wessels.

Austin also competed in camps in Augustana in Sioux Falls, S.D., Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa and in the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

While Fadness would like to see his full squad a little more often, he has gotten the chance to see a couple of players develop as they’ve gotten more playing time this summer.

“Ajuda Nywesh has really come on and improved his game and Gach Gach and Curtis Oberbrockling have looked good as well,” Fadness said.

Hayfield, which opens with Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa at 10 a.m. and Southland, which opens with Waconia at 11:20 a.m. will also compete in the Pacesetter tournament.