One of the most interested observers at last week’s Ann Arbor Shootout summer basketball event was former Whitmore Lake basketball coach Dave Arnold.

Arnold, who recently accepted the head coaching position at Monroe, will be bringing his unusual Grinnell College system into the Southeastern Conference Red Division to face Huron, Pioneer and Skyline. Those three teams, along with Father Gabriel Richard, played a round-robin tournament at Gabriel Richard last Wednesday.

“Huron and Pioneer, based on their performance over the last five years, are the measuring stick for our league,” said Arnold. “And for a summer event, I was really impressed that their kids show up and compete with an almost in-season intensity.

“Both of those programs are the complete package in terms of coaching and how they do things. That’s the goal for our program now.”

The other goal, as evidenced by Arnold’s time at Whitmore Lake, will be to fire up as many 3-pointers as possible. Last year, the Trojans broke their own state record by making 356 shots from 3-point range. They had set the previous mark with 292 in 2008-09.

Now, Arnold is looking forward to seeing what another group of Trojans from a Class A school -- Monroe’s enrollment of more than 2,000 students is roughly five times that of Whitmore Lake’s -- can accomplish within the Grinnell system, which also features constant full-court pressure and mass substitutions at nearly every whistle.

“I think they were intrigued by it. There weren’t any raised eyebrows at the interview, but I think there were a few involuntary twitches,” Arnold joked of his Monroe interview.

Arnold said he can already tell there will be some changes made to the system based on personnel at Monroe, which has a 15-48 record over the past three seasons, but said “we’ll stick to the blueprint as much as we can.”

Count Huron coach Waleed Samaha among the people intrigued by having Arnold’s system in the Southeastern Conference.

“Especially against our press, that should be interesting. If they’re going to run that system against us, it will be an entertaining game. You could see 200 possessions,” he said. “Monroe has players. If those kids buy in, it could be really interesting.”

The Grinnell system adds a new dimension to high school gymnasiums across Washtenaw County this winter. The Southeastern Conference already underwent a style reformation when Huron brought its full-court trapping style to the league in 2007-08 and Ypsilanti introduced the full-court man-to-man pressure that coach Steve Brooks employs to the league in 2009-10. Monroe, a former Michigan Mega Conference Red Division opponent of Ypsilanti, also joined the league in 2009.

Arnold's lone game against a Southeastern Conference opponent while at Whitmore Lake didn’t go well. The Trojans lost 76-25 to Dexter in the Dreadnaughts' holiday tournament last season.

For Arnold, the opportunity to coach at a bigger school wasn’t the only determining factor in leaving Whitmore Lake. Arnold is a Monroe resident and he put 41,000 miles on his Dodge Charger over the last 13 months, including numerous 100-mile round trips to Whitmore Lake. A two-hour practice turned into a four-hour commitment with travel time.

Still, he was torn about taking on the new challenge or remaining at Whitmore Lake, where he led the Trojans to a 14-7 record and second-place finish in the Tri-County Conference.

“It was really difficult to leave Whitmore Lake for so many reasons,” Arnold said. “From a coaching perspective, I had one of the best positions in the state. You hear about so many parental, booster or kid issues at other schools. I didn’t have any of that. Maybe we didn’t have the best talent, but we had great kids, great parents and great administrators.”

Whitmore Lake is still in the process of finding a replacement for Arnold.

Rich Rezler covers high school sports for AnnArbor.com. Contact him at 734-623-2565 or richrezler@annarbor.com.