With the regular season just 20 days away from wrapping up, I’m diving into the world of breaking down numbers and movement from teams throughout 6A, 5A, and 4A and figuring out what the metaphorical bubble is for each conference and laying out what the cut off currently is in each conference.

I’ll also attempt to predict what the formula will have each bracket/play-in look like as we get closer.

Ok here we go--my guesses for the FINAL-8 for the OPEN Div playoffs this season.

Hey y’all! This thread will have the 411 on Westside hoop updates for players & teams to watch this year. During the football season both Richard Smith and I collaborated for #WhatUpWestside spaces and will look to bring those back in January for basketball. In the coming days I’ll have my top teams, players, and storylines from the first month and a half of games as the holiday tournaments begin/wrap up. Hope y’all enjoy this as much as I will, talk to y’all soon!

Coaching in Juco Land (Part 1)...

This is how I see it, after spending almost half of my career doing it. Three of those years were at Yavapai College, which was a completely different experience than coaching in the Maricopa system. Other people may see it differently. Those of you who are interested in doing it can take this for what it's worth. I sat and talked at length one time with Lute Olson in our Mountain Pointe gym, and he told me that he had coached every level from junior high to NCAA D1, and the game was the same at every level- only the talent was different. Coaching is coaching and is something I really enjoyed doing. Nothing I say here will ever take away the joy I had of walking into the gym as a player and coach. I am just trying to be fair to the whole story so you'll know what most people don't.

Bottom line for coaching in a large urban junior college, and I would suspect all of the Maricopa Juco’s, comes in the form of a question that I have been asked frequently over the past several years: “Are you still at Mesa?” I’ve been asked that many times since I resigned. My dentist, for God’s sake, told her new assistant yesterday, while I was in a compromising position and could not respond, that I coached at “some” junior college in the Valley, even though I haven’t set foot on the court in over two years. Urban junior college sports in this county is the netherworld of college athletics. You go there to disappear. I have no doubt that many employees at Mesa never knew who I was. Of course, I didn’t know who they were either. Very few people in the community have any idea what is going on at any given moment in the Maricopa junior college sports world. There is absolutely no media coverage unless you manage to get in a national championship game of some type. That might get you on page nine of the Arizona Republic.

At MCC, the lack of knowledge concerning athletics includes the administration, staff, and students. When my wife taught French there for a while, I would occasionally wander over to the International Studies Office, and they never knew who I was- or cared. The only contact I had with administration was if there was a problem, which you tried at all costs to avoid, for reasons that I discussed in the last blog. The second year I was there, the district brought in a new President for the college. He was there for the next seven years. I don’t think he ever knew my name. On the few occasions when I did run into him, he called me “big guy”. I saw him in our gym once, when he brought some guests from China in to watch us play the Angolan Junior National Team. They left before the game was over, so he didn’t get to talk to “big guy”. During his tenure, we had two Region1 championships and two Fiesta Bowl championships, and a conference championship. We also beat the number 1 team in the nation twice, and the number 1 team in California (they don’t compete in the NJCAA) once. These were things that MCC had not done since the advent of the divisions. In that time, I never got a visit, a phone call, an email, or text acknowledging our accomplishments or congratulating our students.

While recruiting, I also learned that high school students and their parents generally had a dim view of junior college basketball. The parents didn’t spend all that money on club ball for the kid to end up playing juco. I had recruits who decided to just hang it up, rather than face the reality that no one outside of the local juco's wanted them. Most club coaches didn’t sell juco as a possible end result. It was hard to get prospects to come to a game, and when they did- especially our games against Division 1 teams, they were usually stunned and surprised at the level of play. Gradually, over time, even the Division 2’s in Maricopa have upped their play in order to compete. We were all handicapped by the lack of scholarships, so I have to give props to all the programs in the Valley for swimming uphill both ways. Still, we lost many players to their sense that going to a juco meant that they were failures as players, still more to our lack of financial resources, and even more in recent years to the rise of post grad prep schools. I see now where the prep schools are hitting the high schools pretty hard, undercutting the local high school coaches, but that’s another story.

MCC is a commuter college in a large urban metropolitan area. The average age of a student there is 27, and many of the younger students who attend right out of high school have jobs and must arrange their class schedules to fit their need for income. The older students are generally people who are returning to college after a hiatus; or people who are changing careers either by force or desire, but who still must work also to support themselves or young families. These types of people show very little interest in campus life, not because they don’t want to, but because they can’t. There is a student association which had an office in the student center building, but they never really showed any interest in athletic events. In fact, I never really knew what they did as an organization. Every now and then, some new hire would come through and sit down in the office and tell us that they had some great ideas for getting more students involved with game attendance, but I can’t say I ever saw much from those meetings, except an occasional halftime event. Our athletic director, who you think would have some interest in this as well, never did much to enhance attendance. Sometimes, he would schedule a little kids dance performance for halftime, which brought a lot of parents in, as well. Unfortunately, they could care less about basketball, and when the kids finished at halftime, half the crowd left the building. I asked him eventually to please quit scheduling those performances, because it was a real let down to the players and coaches to come back out after halftime and see that so many people had left. One time, our AD scheduled a Native American dance group for a halftime presentation. What he didn’t know was that they were going to light up some hula hoop size rings on fire for their dance. Subsequently, the smoke set off the campus fire alarms and made the gym unplayable for the next 45 minutes.

There was never any real incentive financially to bring crowds in, either. Our program did not share in any of the revenue from game attendance. That money went into some kind of “general fund”. With that in mind, the athletic director could never lean on us to get butts in the seats as a matter of job security. We asked until it became redundant to have the district at least recognize us as a Division 1 program, thus allowing us to finance our program by the NJCAA Division 1 allowances, which included room and board. The short answer was “why don’t you just go D2 like everyone else?” At first, we had the AD’s support in pursuing the matter with the district, until finally one day he came into my office and said “why don’t you just go D2 like everyone else?” And that was the end of that pursuit. We would fight on by ourselves. Now that I’m gone, look for MCC to go D2 as quickly as possible. As a side note, over the years I was there, I had discussions with many people who thought MCC was, in fact, given special dispensation by the district because we were D1. I even heard that from coaches in the conference. That was absolutely untrue. We were financed exactly like all the other Maricopa schools, and were never allowed to participate in D1 under D1 scholarship rules.

Next time: Part 2

Here we go..

Doing what you love and loving what you are doing...

Whenever we spoke to our players about the next level recruiting process they were in- and there were many- we always said that from our point of view there were three major considerations that they should view in their choices in order of importance: 1. Who you would be playing for (coaches); 2. Who you would be playing with (teammates); 3. The location of the institution. The plain fact was that if number one or two were not right, number three wouldn’t really matter. You could be miserable in Hawai’i walking on a beach, if you didn’t get along with your coaches and/or teammates. Turns out that the same is true for coaching. I grew up in the Valley and, of course, I love it here. It is a great location. I also loved the assistant coaches that I worked with over the years. But, the biggest reason I moved from job to job over the years was not money, because for most of us coaches, the money is never that good. The reason was the leadership at the institution. Hell, I took a $12,000 a year pay cut to move from Camelback High School to Mountain Pointe High School in 1997, because the Pride were led by Harold Slemmer, and people I respected greatly said he was the best guy in the state to work for. At the end of my interview with Harold, he asked me if I had any questions for him. I said I had just one- “will you be here long term?” He said yes- MP was his baby. Two years later he left to become the director of the AIA. Most of the great Mountain Pointe coaches exited soon after, but I stuck around longer even though it was never the same. I did the same at MCC, but not for the same reasons. It was never the same after my suspension. I was doing what I loved, but I didn’t ever love to do it again there. Loyalty is a two way street.

My assistant in 2014-15 was Cory Hoff. I told him that this would be it for me and I did not want to coach at MCC anymore. He said he wanted the job and I told him that the best way he could get it would be if I waited until the following season’s first day of practice and then walked in say “I quit”. They would pretty much have to let Cory take over, probably on an interim basis, where he would have a chance to prove himself. Quitting on the first day of practice is kind of a sour move, but remember I was still smarting from the treatment I had gotten after the marijuana brownie incident.

Things began to develop well in our plan through the spring of 2015, as I let Cory take a big role in our spring PE class, so the shock of a change would be less to the players. In fact, the class was in Cory’s name so he could get paid, so many days I just stayed in the office during class time. I had a large filing cabinet in our office and I began to clean it out of nearly 35 years of papers, pictures, practice schedules, and the like. The athletic secretary took notice and asked me if I was retiring, but I said no, so the cat would stay in the bag. As summer approached, Cory came to me with a bombshell. He had been offered the position of Associate Head Coach at Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa, and was going to accept it. So much for our plan.

This began a sequence of events that would go on for the next six years. Each year I would get another assistant coach, and each year they would agree to the same plan that I had devised for Cory, and each year they would get another job before realization of the plan. Ernest Shand took an assistant’s position at an NCAA D2 school, Albany State. Then Josh Kutchinski came back with the idea of taking over, but he left for the head coaching position at Jackson College in his home state of Michigan and took my son Jordan with him. Next up was Jimmy Herrera, a guy from California who had spent twelve years already as a juco assistant.

I had begun to not be involved at all in recruiting- after the brownie suspension, I never went to another high school game on behalf of MCC. I didn’t want to be a hypocrite and try to sell a school that I no longer believed in, or establish relationships with players and families that would be broken. However, each time an assistant left, I still felt a sense of attachment to the players and did not want to just leave them in the hands of whoever the AD wanted to bring in. Our records would indicate my continued lack of involvement in the program and the recruiting over the next five years. The first seven years before being suspended we were 144-66 playing a tough schedule every year and having very little to offer financially, and using primarily great Arizona kids. Particularly satisfying was our 113-43 ACCAC record, knowing that they knew we were D1 in name only. The next five after the suspension we were 79-70. We played our usual tough Division 1 schedules during these years, and kept the Fiesta Bowl going barely, even upsetting two more number 1 ranked teams along the way. But, I was definitely not looking at this as anything more than a job, which is not how coaching should be. I spent very little time in the office, which was right next door to the athletic director, choosing to watch film and do most of the coaching work in a little room next to the team lockers in the gym.

Each of those years, I figured was going to be my last. I was trying to get out, but was also trying to have one triumph over MCC before leaving. In the 2019-20 season, the AD called me into his office to tell me that the new college president had decided to move us out of our locker room and take us completely out of the gym to a new general athletic area where we would share lockers with other teams. It was claimed to be a Title IX issue. In my mind, it was an idiotic idea to have us dress in another building with less privacy, especially since visiting teams would still use a locker room in the gym. Now, I was determined to walk away no matter what, but wanted to make sure that Jimmy would follow the plan. If he couldn’t, then I would have stepped down at the end of 2019-20 season. Jimmy swore up and down that he wanted the job and would not leave early. Because of that commitment, I would again wait until the first day of practice to quit, in order to give him the best chance of getting the job. So, this was it- when practice started in 2020-21, I would quit and they would have to hire Jimmy and he would get his shot. Then the pandemic hit. The 2020-21 season was cancelled. Jimmy still wanted the job, so I had to sit on it for another year until practice was beginning in the 2021-22 season. I was still drawing a full time salary, so I kind of viewed this as the Universe’s way of paying me back for the money I lost going over to Mountain Pointe on Harold Slemmer’s promise not to leave. Because of Covid, I had not been on the MCC campus much over that last year and had absolutely no investment in the players Jimmy had recruited. I didn’t even know most of their names. So walking away this time was easy. But, it had taken almost six years to actually do it. And Jimmy was hired to replace me, so I figured that if I could help one guy get a chance, it was all worth it. Paying it forward.

Next time: Coaching in juco land...

Last one of these threads for the season!

This week I'll be doing my first doubleheader of the year (over 2 nights). Through 13 weeks, I've seen 26 different teams. That number grows by 3 with a Friday night game between Red Mountain & Highland plus an Open contest on Saturday between Chandler & Basha.

I was at Highland last year for a 6A semifinal game against Red Mountain. The Hawks raced out to a 28-0 lead and won 28-14. The teams also met on Nov. 4 and Highland won 17-14 (although RM was without its starting QB and RB).

Red Mountain (8-4) has scored 94 points in its 2 playoff games. Last week in a 49-10 win over Mesa, the Lions rushed for 276 yards. This is Red Mountain's 5th semifinal appearance in 7 seasons. Starting QB Carter Crispin has 2,050 yards and 24 TD passes. The Mountain Lions also have senior leadership at RB with Lenox Lawson (1129 yards, 12 TDs) and WR Ja'Kobi Lane (801 yards, 11 TDs).

Highland (9-3) has outscored its 2 playoff opponents 71-32. There were many that said the Hawks would march right through this bracket due to being upset at missing the Open, but Salpointe battled HHS to a 14-10 game last Friday. Both touchdowns were scored by Kody Cullimore (rushing), who also had a sack and an interception. Highland starts Kalen Fisher at QB, a sophomore who became the starter in Game 6. Carson Mulleneaux leads the Hawks with 752 rushing yards. In last year's playoff game, I watched him have a breakout night with 25 carries for 165 yards & 2 TDs.

Highland has rushed for 250 and 236 yards in its last 2 games against Red Mountain. If the Lions can slow that attack down, they can prevent the Hawks from making a third straight title game appearance.


Basha and Chandler had a memorable ESPNU appearance on Oct. 28. While the national cameras were there to showcase '24 quarterbacks Dylan Raiola and Demond Williams Jr., it was the defenses that showed up in a 14-7 Bears' win. Both teams scored in the first quarter and it stayed 7-7 until Deshaun Buchanan scored his 2nd TD late in the game.

Chandler (9-2) is hoping to have Ca'lil Valentine (1,299 yards, 18 TDs) back at RB. I may be the only Team AZV guy that hasn't seen Dylan Raiola in person. The Ohio State commit has 2,342 yards and 22 TDs this season. He led the Wolves in a fourth-quarter comeback last week against Centennial and matched his season high with 36 attempts. Basha is the only team he did not throw a TD against.

Basha (10-1) will be the first team I've seen twice this year. I waited out the 90-minute rain delay back on Oct. 7 before the Bears were defeated by Liberty, 35-7. Will Basha make it back for a second chance against the Lions? Williams, who has 59 career TD passes, has 23 TDs with just 1 interception this season. That pick came way back in the season opener against Los Alamitos. Buchanan has 1,288 yards and 17 TDs and still has time to stamp himself as the state's Player of the Year.

This game will be played at Dick Pallas Field on the campus of Dobson HS (neutral site).

I want to know what y’all think will be the Championship games this year?

4A: ALA-GN vs Apache Junction
5A: Cactus vs Desert Edge
6A: Casteel vs Highland
Open: Liberty vs Basha/Centennial Winner

We got some updates from the small school event.

The beginning of the end....

The beginning of the end for me at MCC came the next year, 2014-15. We went 21-9 overall, and 17-5 in the ACCAC. There were plenty of really good moments, such as the development of Khari Holloway into a Division1 All-American. He was a sophomore, who in old school parlance “paid his dues”. This happens less and less these days, it seems, as players are not willing to bide their time and learn from others. Khari’s freshman year, he played point guard behind Shyheim McClelland, who was a great leader and skilled athlete at the position. Shy would lead us to that 26-5 season, and was the heart and soul of a great team. Khari battled him every day in practice and they really went at it, which is exactly how position competition should be, right? Shy got most of the game minutes, however, and Khari spent a lot of time on the bench. Shy missed a game right after the Fiesta Bowl, and Khari took the job at the point and had a 14 point, 10 assist game against Scottsdale, leading us to victory. The very next game with Shy back, he hardly played. The thought that he might transfer never really entered our minds, so we didn’t agonize over having to play Khari just to keep him happy. He was a great teammate, even though he was getting a lot of pressure from family and friends to leave. He would come into the office more than any other player we ever had and watch film and try to learn. He would always be in the gym working extra on his skills, and was thankfully surrounded by other teammates who did likewise and fully supported his efforts. After Shy left, Khari rightfully felt the job was his and he intensified his training. It was getting harder for us to duplicate the kind of players we could put around him, as prep schools and small NAIA colleges in the area had begun to go after the same players we did. Khari really carried the team, and ended up leading the nation in Division 1 free throw percentage at 93%. He was not someone you wanted to foul late in the game. Khari was eventually named to the NJCAA Division 1 All-American Team.

As mentioned, the team was not as talented as the previous year, but they still fought their way to the number one seed in the conference play-offs. We managed to get to the championship game of the Fiesta Bowl tournament, which was astounding, before losing to San Bernardino CC from California in the championship game. We also played Indian Hills, Iowa, who was ranked number 1 in Division1 in our gym that season. Khari had a sensational game, but we ended up losing in overtime. We beat Arizona Western in the first round of the conference play-offs, but lost to Cochise College in the Region 1 championship game. It was really a good season, but had a dark cloud hanging over it that would impact the rest of my journey at MCC.

In the fall, we held our annual retreat, returning once again to Flagstaff. As we had done many times previously, we rented a house for the weekend. It was a beautiful place- big enough for the whole team- and had a gorgeous view of the San Francisco Peaks. One of players would be celebrating a birthday that weekend, and unbeknownst to our staff, some players had conspired to bring some brownies that were laced with marijuana to the retreat to help celebrate. Marijuana was still illegal at that time, and even if it wasn’t, this would not be something that we would condone, and the players knew it. They took great pains to hide the brownies and ended up putting them in a location at the house that they felt would be safe from us. Our second night at the house, we took our annual dinner trip to Bun Huggers in Flagstaff, and during the meal, one of the players- the one who was celebrating his birthday- passed out and hit the floor. Not all of the players were involved, but the ones who were complicit in the brownies knew what had happened. Our player had a bad reaction to the brownies he had ingested at the house earlier and had become ill. No one told us that and we were frantically trying to figure out what had happened, and were beginning all of the CPR steps as the EMT’s arrived from the hospital, which was thankfully right down the street.

One of our assistant coaches, Cory Hoff, went to the hospital with the ambulance, while our other assistant and myself escorted the rest of the team back to the house. We were getting constant updates from Cory, and very quickly found out the root cause of our player’s condition. The EMT’s, in a college town like Flagstaff, had seen this situation many times. They told Cory that the player had ingested too much marijuana and would be OK under observation in a short time. The police were notified, but after talking to the hospital staff, basically laughed it off. Flagstaff, after all, was a college town. Within a couple of hours, the player was released from the hospital and rejoined the rest of us at the house. While we had been waiting for his return, the other coach and myself met with the team in the living room. I was still trying to figure out what happened and none of the players seemed to know the cause. We were guessing a cold or the flu, or perhaps dehydration and all of the players seemed as mystified as I was. Then the phone call came in from Cory telling me that it was marijuana. The room got real quiet after I told the team, and asked them if they knew anything about this? At first, no- they knew nothing. Then, a group of three or four stood up and said that they, in fact, knew where the marijuana had come from. Within a short time, the main elements of the story were unwound, and we decided to pack up our stuff and cut the retreat short. I told the team that we would meet on Monday to determine what sort of discipline to mete out for all of this.

The plan was to meet with my staff on Monday morning to discuss what would be done to the players who were involved with the incident. Bringing marijuana to a team event was not only stupid, but it was illegal, so our athletic director was going to have to be notified. I decided to have the team meeting first, to lay out the punishments from the team standpoint; then notify the AD of the event. There was one player who had brought the brownies, thus making it a must to remove him from the team permanently. There were other players who were made aware of the brownies, including the birthday boy, and they were going to be suspended for an indefinite period from practices, plus given a healthy dose of running. And it turned out that one of the assistant coaches had known about the brownies beforehand, as well, and he was terminated from the staff.

These were severe, and I thought just actions taken by us. I then notified the AD, because the young man who brought the brownies was, in my opinion, liable to legal action. Then, all hell broke loose. The AD turned the information over to a college vice president, and this is the kind of stuff that they feast on. It is why I tried so hard to never bring any problems to them, but in this instance, there was no choice- someone had broken the law. A full investigation was ordered and other VP’s got involved. All players and coaches were interviewed. One VP told me “your players really love you”, as if she had never seen our program in action or knew anything about it, which she hadn’t or didn’t. The AD called me and asked me why I hadn’t called public safety immediately as the incident unfolded. I reminded him that we were up in Flagstaff, and that we had called public safety another time for a flat tire on I-17, and they said there was nothing they could do, because we were off campus.

Bottom line, someone higher up had to be responsible for all of this, and the administration’s logical choice was me. Even though I knew nothing of the brownies and commanded the situation as I thought anyone in a leadership position would, they had to close the case and put it in a file with an adult held accountable and punished. Ironically, they never involved the Mesa police in any way, and the young man who brought the brownies was never charged with anything. The punishment? I would be suspended for a week without pay, and our upcoming trip to South Plains, Texas to open the season would be cancelled. That trip had already been paid for with non-refundable airline tickets to the tune of about $8,000. That was all fund raised money that we would never see again, so this was not a light punishment.

I never felt the same about MCC again after this season concluded. Given all that we had done to advance the program in our years up to this one, the punishment seemed excessive and unfair. I made up my mind that it was time for me to leave. I wanted one last moment of satisfaction before walking out the door, and that would be that they would have to hire one of my assistants to take over the program. Little did I know that it would take six years to pull it off.

Next time: Do what you love and love what you do...

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

For the 3rd year in a row, I'll be spending the first night of the Open playoffs at Hamilton HS. This will certainly not be as easy of a game for the Huskies as 2020 (Corona del Sol) or 2021 (ALA-Queen Creek) were. Coming into Hamilton's House is the defending Open Division champion Saguaro Sabercats.

Saguaro (7-3) has been in must-win mode for the Open since it lost to Liberty back in September to fall to 2-3. Brophy gave the Sabercats a test in the regular season finale, but SHS prevailed 14-10. In its 5-game win streak, no team has scored more than 18 against Saguaro. Devon Dampier has 14 TD passes and is just 41 rushing yards away from a 1,000-yard season. He was named the 6A Northeast Valley Region Player of the Year. Linebacker John Butler has 60 tackles and 4.5 sacks.

Hamilton (8-2) comes in after a dramatic 19-17 win over rival Chandler. Among in-state teams, only Basha defeated the Huskies, and it was a game that Hamilton led 23-9 with 10 minutes to go. Even with that loss to Bishop Gorman in the schedule, HHS averaged 35 points and allowed just 19. The Huskies had two receivers (Tre Spivey and Jaxon Haynes) make First Team All-6A Premier Region. Those 2 combined for 68 catches, 935 yards, and 13 touchdowns. Hamilton saw its season end against the Sabercats in the Open semis in both 2019 & 2021. In 2020, the Huskies defeated Saguaro in an ESPN regular season game.

So now that it took me 100 days to finish
what does it look like just for 5A?

So now that it took me 100 days to finish
what does it look like just for 4A?

I am sure it will change a bunch of times but here is my tentative schedule..

Just recent news about myself

So I started being a part of a new website on Wednesday.
It focuses on Mid-Major Schools or smaller High Majors that are not in the public's eye as much as the BIG Schools.

There are 12 colleges so far:
Boise State
Charlotte
Fresno State
GCU
Memphis
Nebraska
New Mexico
New Mexico State
North Dakota State
UNLV
VCU
Western Kentucky

Another championship run...

If there is any question in your mind about where Maricopa junior college sports stands in the public eye, look no farther than today. Scottsdale Community College women's volleyball team is playing for the national championship tonight in NJCAA Division 2. Now, I realize it is Division 2, and that's a whole another story, but there is absolute no media coverage or mention of this event today. If they win, they might get a few lines in the Republic. If they lose- crickets. Anyway...

The next year in this epic was 2013-14, and was one of the most fun seasons I ever had in coaching. We had a huge loss right up front, though, as Mike Grothaus took off to be the head coach at Basha High School. We had five great years together, and that is the longest tenure of any assistant coach I had at MCC. We tried every which way to get him a full time job on campus, but, just like the high schools, assistant coaches are not valued in the local junior colleges. Mesa Community College lost someone who should have stepped right in to the head position when I was ready to go, which, as it turned out, was not too far down the road. It was definitely a win for Basha High School, however, and within four years of his arrival there, they had their first state championship.

Getting back to the season, the team had a fabulous chemistry, but going into the summer, not nearly as much size as would be necessary to contend nationally. That problem was soon fixed by the arrival of Cam Boone, who transferred to us from Grand Canyon University. Besides being a wonderful human being, he was everything you would ever want as a player- skilled, dedicated, and a fabulous teammate. Although not particularly tall at about 6’6”, he was enormously strong and could rebound and finish in a crowd. He complimented the players we had perfectly and we were off to a 26-5 season, 20-2 and conference champions in the ACCAC, and Fiesta Bowl champions. Of the five losses, all were to Division 1 programs and three of them were by five points or less. We travelled to Iowa right off the bat to play in a tournament at perennial powerhouse Indian Hills CC. Although we lost to Indian Hills the last night, anyone can tell you what a ferociously tough place that is to play. We led at the half 51-49, but Cam was in foul trouble the whole night. Indian Hills had watched him get 35 points and 20 rebounds the night before, so I’ll let you use your imagination on how the refs were the next night. Yes, that sort of thing still goes on in the juco world.

A couple of other interesting tid-bits from Indian Hills- it is way out there in Iowa. They view visiting teams more as unwelcome strangers. Since the media pretty much ignores the juco world, we watched the night before as the Indian Hills team ran onto the floor right through the other team’s warmup routine. Normally, if you do that, you are trying to intimidate your opponent and that will bring trouble- as it did that night. Both teams squared off and had to be separated before the game even started. I had to call the Indian Hills coach after the game and ask him to not do that before our game, because I knew our guys would not take it well. He feigned ignorance that his guys did what we saw with our eyes, but promised not to do it. When they ran out on the floor before our game, it was obvious that they had been talked to, so they ran around us. A few of them were laughing and faked like they were going to run through our warmup, but didn’t. The other thing that I found interesting, if not amusing, was that the section of fans right behind our bench was largely comprised of elderly people. I don’t know about you, but I expected them to be supportive of the home team, but be rather genial. All during the game, however, they were some of the most foul-mouthed people I have ever encountered. I was incredulous at what I was hearing and one time turned around to see a woman, clearly in her 70’s or 80’s, flipping me off and dropping f-bombs. Life must really be tough on the farm. It felt like a scene from the movie Hoosiers. This is the twenty first century, right?

We got out to a quick lead in the conference and would go wire-to-wire in first place. Our only two losses in the league were to Arizona Western. In both games, we led in the second half, and at Yuma, we were up 14 midway through the final period. Those really didn’t sit well with our guys, and when we met Western in the conference finals, we won 108-63, leaving no doubt with that one. The 45 point margin of victory still stands as the most one-sided region championship game victory in ACCAC history. We also won the Fiesta Bowl tournament title, beating Monroe, New York, who was ranked number 1 in the nation in the finals. Monroe had come to the Fiesta Bowl a few years earlier, also ranked number 1 at 13-0. They lost all three games in the tournament, and the coach swore he would never return. But, it ate away at him and they came back in 2013 to try and get justice. This time they were 14-1. The final score was 78-64, and the game was never really in doubt. Monroe opened the game in a 1-3-1 zone, but I guess they were unaware of our two great shooters, Sami Bzai and Tre Ogles, and with them in the corners knocking down 3’s and Cam Boone in the paint, we neutralized their size advantage. Sami and Tre made thirteen three’s. There was a pretty good crowd in attendance- not great considering this was the championship game of the best junior college holiday tournament in the nation and had a local team, which had cracked the top 25 in national rankings, playing against the number 1 team in the nation. If this had been ASU in the top 25 playing, let’s say Gonzaga, the Desert Financial Center would have been packed, and the national and local media would have been all over the upset. But that’s the scene in the Maricopa jucos.

After winning the region title, we once again had to fly up to Salt Lake to play the Region 18 winner. This time, their champion was Salt Lake City CC and we had to play them in their gym. It is one of the nicest junior college facilities in the country, and it is really tough to play them there. They were a top five team nationally and had Gary Payton II as one of the star players. We knew this would be a tough task. It became even tougher, if not impossible, when our big guy, Cam Boone, severely sprained his ankle in a shooting drill two days before the game. It was a classic case of a ball from another player rolling under Cam’s feet right when he was in the act of shooting. He came down on it, and went down as did our chances of upsetting the Bruins. He tried to play on it, but could barely move. Somehow he scored nine points, which tells you a lot about Cam. We ended up losing by nine points.

This was the first year that the NJCAA would have at-large teams in the national tournament, so we had some glimmer of hope that we would get an invitation, given the kind of season we had. But the NJCAA, which is really kind of a mom and pop outfit, kept it really simple. They went to the top 25 list and started at number one, giving invitations to any team, in order of ranking, that had been knocked out in regional play. Remember- we had won our region by 45 points and had lost in a super regional. That made no difference to them and our 15th rank was too far down the list to get a bid. It was crushing, because this was really a great basketball team. You wouldn’t know it, though, unless you were there, because there was zero media coverage.

Next time: the beginning of the end...

The brackets have been filled and it's playoff time in Arizona once again! For this first round, I'll be staying close to home and won't even have to get on a freeway. I'll be at Horizon to see the defending 5A champion Huskies against Gilbert, a team that overachieved vs. most people's preseason predictions.

Gilbert (6-4) hasn't won a playoff game since 2010, although it should be noted that the Tigers only qualified for the postseason in 2018 & 2019 in that span. The Tigers are led by 2-way RB/LB Cooper Zellner. The son of head coach Derek Zellner rushed for 763 yards & 10 TDs while also leading GHS in tackles with 121. Gilbert likes to blitz and junior defensive end Parker Bryce has cleaned up with 17 sacks and 5 forced fumbles. The Tigers defeated Sunnyslope this season and led Notre Dame last week at halftime (7-2) before falling in the second half.

Horizon (6-4) had a 5-game win streak snapped last week against ALA-Queen Creek for the San Tan Region title. With ALA in the Open bracket, the Huskies went 3-1 against teams in the 5A playoffs (NDP was the loss). Horizon was expecting to have Wesley Lambert back at RB, but he moved to Florida over the summer. That cleared up space for freshman Bodie Zamorano, who has rushed for 605 yards and 8 TDs. Kaden Zordani and Roman Funk have split time all season and it will be interesting to see if the Huskies continue this in the playoffs. Baylor commit Matthew Klopfenstein and senior WR Cole Linyard provide targets for either passer.

In terms of common opponents, both teams lost to Notre Dame and both teams beat Cactus Shadows. Horizon defeated Campo Verde while Gilbert lost to the Coyotes. It's a 12-5 matchup and the winner will likely be headed to Cactus next week in the quarterfinals.

Post 'em if you got 'em!

The Marshal Comes to Town...

The next year, we returned a good group, and it seemed like the things that split the last team up were not going to happen this time. We had been doing team retreats every Fall up in Flagstaff; having leadership sessions and practicing at Northern Arizona University.

Speaking of NAU, during our time at MCC, we helped 34 young men get NCAA Division 1 scholarships. On no occasion, did NAU ever actively recruit a single one of those guys. Some people would comment that our retreats up there should not be allowed, as it gave NAU an unfair recruiting advantage. It didn’t, because they never recruited any of our guys. A couple of times an assistant coach would call and ask if he could come watch practice, which was normal protocol for coaches, then not show up. NAU was the only school who ever did that. Another time, a coach showed up, then simply walked out during the practice. Other coaches would always pull one of our assistants aside and say thanks for letting them come watch, and they had to go. Common courtesy. The NAU guy just walked out and we never heard from them again that year. I am relating this to you, so that it is understood how recruiting should go. I would bet that Shane Burcar, being an ex-high school coach, has solved that. ASU never showed interest in any of our players, and the only ASU coach who ever came to the gym, which was about three miles from ASU, was Herb Sendek coming to a Fiesta Bowl game to recruit Jerry Blakes, a guard from San Bernadino Valley College. We were playing them in the first round of the tournament. He left before the game was over, about the time it became apparent that we were going to win. And UofA really doesn’t go the juco route, so we never had any contact with them. We know what route they went, as evidenced by an FBI investigation.

Anyway, the 2012-13 team seemed to really get straight the things that hurt the last group and were determined to not let that happen again. The team was particularly strong up front, and we returned our point guard from the previous year. Our non-conference schedule was great, with a tip-off tournament in Salt Lake, a strong Fiesta Bowl tournament, and a home game against the number one team in the nation, South Plains, Texas. We went 24-7, and 19-3 in the ACCAC.

One of the most memorable moments my time in Mesa came when we played South Plains in our gym in December. We had just come off of a third place finish in a very loaded Fiesta Bowl tournament, beating East Mississippi in the final game. They had the nation’s leading scorer and there was a brawl during the game that happened right in front of the East Mississippi bench. One of their players took exception to something one of our players did. Tre Ogles, who was a real mixer, got it going and when they started to push and shove, virtually the entire East Mississippi team came on to the floor. Of course, they were all immediately ejected and suspended for their next game, which happened to be a league game. To say the coaches were unhappy is an understatement. Lesson- don’t fight in front of your own bench. Anyway, back to the South Plains game. They were a brilliant team that would end up going 36-0. Every position was legitimately two deep- and they had a guy named Marshal Henderson.

We had heard about Marshal from a friend of Coach Grothaus, who was an assistant at the University of Utah. Marshal had gone there as a freshman, and subsequently been suspended for a variety of reasons, including slapping a BYU player. His exploits in Salt Lake City are still legendary, and he was only there one year. He then went to South Plains and ended up in the MCC gym that December. What we knew was that he was an extremely skilled player, could shoot the lights out, and would talk a lot of noise. And we were right. To say he was eccentric, is an understatement. When he and his team walked into the gym, most of the players had earphones and were obviously listening to music. Marshal had no head set, but he was literally dancing- clearly to some music in his head. He was a very friendly young guy and was the only South Plains player to walk (dance) over and shake our hands. His dad was a coach, so he evidently had some deep seeded respect for coaches. He said “hey, I’m Marshal”. OK. When they came out for warmups, he was standing near center court and became fascinated with our defensive footwork drill and started to do it on his own. At one point, he was shooting near our bench and he turned to me and Mike Grothaus and said “I feel it tonight- you better guard me”. We said we would do our best. Right after the game started, he dribbled almost to the exact spot where he talked to us and pulled up for a three. He was so far out there, that our defender hadn’t even started to guard him yet. As it swished through the net, he turned to us and said “I told you- I’m hot”. Classic. We gave them a great game and were only down four with about two minutes left. Marshal then hit two unbelievably long three’s and that was that. He would go on to play at the University of Mississippi, and become even more legendary there. His junior year, they won the SEC tournament championship by beating Kentucky- you can only imagine what that meant down there. Unforgettable kid.

Our reward for a 19-3 league record and a number 2 seed in the playoffs was an opening round game at home against Arizona Western. Playing them was always tough, close, and decided by one or two key things in the end. It never really mattered where the game was either. They played exceptionally well, and that night’s determining factor was their ability to overcome our strength, which was field goal defense- for which we had been ranked number one in the conference all year. Western came in and shot almost 60% from the field and won by seven. If this was the NCAA, we would have probably gone on to the nationals with an at-large bid, but this was juco- you lose and you’re done. So, that was the way it ended.

Next time: Another championship...

Let us take a look at some underclassmen candidates for 4-6A.

Only freshman or sophomores.

To finish off the regular season, I'm making my first trip to Desert Edge to see the Scorpions battle Cactus for the 5A Desert West Region. The teams are ranked 6 and 7, respectively. I've seen DE play twice, but both on the road and both prior to the Carters' arrival. Since Cactus has been 4A (or Division III) during my 14-year run of covering games, this will be the first time I see the Cobras play live.

Cactus (6-3) has scored 21 TDs over the past four games (all wins). It seems the Cobras have settled on Deer Valley transfer Rudy Gonzales at the QB position. RB Damian Jiles ran for 144 in last week's win over Verrado while sophomore WR Nikko Boncore caught a pair of TDs. Defensive end Dom Solano, who just committed to Montana State, had 4 sacks.

Desert Edge (7-2) won its 3rd straight last week over Millennium (55-14). Sophomore Hezekia "Budda" Millender leads the Scorpions with 2,134 passing yards, 26 TDs, and only 3 INTs. Christopher Cordero is over 1,000 yards for the 2nd straight season and has 16 TDs. Vinny Mansfield leads DE in receiving with 11 TDs, and on defense, Maxwell Sawyer has 7.5 sacks. Excited to see junior DB Aundre Gibson, who has 13 offers.

The winner has a shot at a top 4 seed. The loser should still be a top-8 seed and get a home game.

Let us take a look at some breakout candidates for 4-6A.

Either a player who is just coming into his own, getting more playing time, just moved into town or has been hampered by injuries.

Totally random idea since it seems like their will be 8 teams from the 6A conference in the open this year. Let's eliminate the Open Division and make the 6A playoffs a 12 team format with the other playoffs remaining 16 team tourneys.

Week One: 12 seed plays 5 seed, 11 seed plays 6, 10 plays 7, 9 plays 8......teams 1 through 4 have a bye.
Teams who are seeds 13-16 in 6A become the top 4 seeds in the 5A playoffs. For instance Red Mountain would play Millennium, Salpointe would play Gilbert, etc... Seeds 13 through 16 in 5A become the top 4 seeds in the 4A playoffs meaning Paradise Valley plays Lake Havasu, Central plays Yuma Catholic, etc...
The teams that would get "screwed" and not qualify for post season would be teams 13-16 in 3A. Those 4 teams were blown out anyway this past weekend.
Anyway, thats my thought process.
I'm sure you guys will rip it but it would be different

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen! This is the official thread for the 2022-2023 Arizona Varsity Ocho rankings! Each week on the forum you’ll see the rankings by each member of Team AZV before they end up on the website as well as championship predictions from a few as well. I’d love to hear from not just Team AZV but each of you as well that support Arizona Varsity and what your predictions are. I have a few surprises for the Ocho this season so stay tuned!

After going to games at Central and Trevor Browne the past two weeks, I'm going to extend the PXU tour on to a 3rd week and hit up South Mountain as the Jaguars try to play spoiler against Camelback. This will be the first time I've ever seen Camelback play live. I last attended a game at South Mountain in 2019 when the Carters were there.

Camelback (5-3) comes in at #15 in the 5A rankings. The Spartans will need to win this one to set up a winner-take-all situation for next week's game at Central. Both teams are 3-0 in the region and with Central at #14, the loser will likely tumble out of the top 16. The Spartans got some pub before the season and those interviews revealed they would throw the ball on about 80 percent of their plays. That didn't materialize as QB Max Martin has 191 pass attempts compared with 196 carries (37 from Martin) for the backs. So the Spartans are balanced, which isn't a bad thing. I first saw Martin when he was one of 5 QBs battling for the No. 1 spot at Liberty in the spring of 2021. This year, he has thrown for 1,737 yards with 16 TD passes. Whoever next year's starting QB is will have an experienced receiving corps. Kemahn Knight (soph), Jaylen Gillis (junior), and Aken Logan (soph) have combined for 80 catches, 1413 yards, and 14 touchdowns.

South Mountain (4-4, 2-1) has improved from last year when it went 2-8. Part of that is due to a return to the Metro Region. When the Jaguars had success in 2019, but no playoff spot, they were moved to the Northeast Valley Region. That may have worked out had it not been for the mostly-lost 2020 season (2-1 in three games played with none for lower levels). In 2021, South faced Sunnyslope, Notre Dame, Desert Mountain, and Cactus Shadows in region games. That didn't go well. After a midseason four-game losing streak, SMHS has rebounded with close wins over McClintock (12-6) and Fairfax (22-18). Camelback shouldn't expect an easy time on Friday as it looks ahead to next week's Central game. Not able to give stats for South Mountain's players this season as the team only entered numbers for five of the games (3 losses omitted). In looking at last week's win over Fairfax, the Jags faced a 6-0 deficit at the half. SMHS threw just 6 passes (from 2 different QBs) in the game, but found success on the ground with senior Caleb Palmer (27 carries, 172 yards, TD). Palmer was also one of 4 Jaguars to intercept a pass in the game. In all, South Mountain forced 6 turnovers and if the Jags can do anything close to that on defense this week, it can stay in the contest.