SAN DIEGO – The multitude of reasons why, in reality, the Sierra Canyon High Trailblazers should be considered the strong favorites to successfully defend their California State Open Division basketball championship were all on display Saturday night in front of a packed San Diego Montgomery gymnasium for the final game of the three-day San Diego Tip-Off Challenge.
Consider:
*Five of the program’s top six players from last season made up Coach Andre Chevalier’s starting lineup in the Trailblazers’ business-like 86-40 victory against a Saint Augustine squad that has a chance to be the second-best team in San Diego this season (behind defending Section Open champion Mission Bay, which returns every starter including Duke-bound guard Boogie Ellis);
*In seniors Scotty Pippen Jr., Cassius Stanley and Kenyon Martin Jr. they have players who will be playing for major college programs a year from now with Pippen, arguably, the best Southern Section point guard from the Class of 2019 and Stanley and Martin – without a doubt – the two most athletically spectacular players on any team in the West;
*Forward Terren Frank (like Pippen and Martin, the son of an NBA first-round draft selection) is – at the least – one of the 10-best prospects among Class of 2020 players in Southern California;
*The other senior, L Simpson, is one of the program’s two best perimeter defenders (with Pippen) as well as much-improved shooter who, like Stanley, has a chance to be a state champion for the third time this spring since they were freshmen teammates on the Harvard-Westlake squad that won a title in 2016.
Oh, and there’s more this season – a whole lot more:
*Chevalier’s first three substitutes Saturday night were 6-3 freshman Amari Bailey, 6-6 Andrew Austin and 7-foot Christian Koloko.
Bailey, originally from Chicago, is remarkably gifted and poised and had six assists and all were delivered right into shooters’ “pockets” – often (in the case of Stanley, Martin and Koloko) when those receiving hands were about a foot above the rim.
He’s primarily Pippen’s “backup” for now, which means he’ll get plenty of playing time with all of the games in which his team is going to get overwhelming leads early. But, at some point, Chevalier is going have the cool option of playing them at the same time – especially against teams with the ability to pressure them defensively.
Austin, a transfer from West Ranch in Valencia who had a strong summer with the L.A. Rockfish club program, had three 3s among the 11 points he scored Saturday night.
He’ll have multiple scholarship offers this spring.
Koloko, who is from Cameroon, improved rapidly over the course of his junior season (which didn’t begin until last January at nearby Birmingham High; because of foreign student rules in California, he had to play his senior season at a non-public school).
And he improved so much over the spring and summer (with the Oakland Soldiers’ Nike/EYBL program) that a lot of high-profile college coaching staffs were plenty intrigued. He signed with the University of Arizona last week.
He picked up fouls in a hurry Saturday night – eventually fouling out in the fourth quarter with only about 15 minutes of on-court time – but not before he grabbed seven rebounds, blocked three shots and scored six points.
And yet . . . there’s more!
Junior guard Zach Brooker came off the bench didn’t take a shot until the fourth quarter but wasted little time in swishing three 3s.
And the Trailblazers will get even bigger and deeper when 7-2 – and he looks all of it – sophomore Jia-Hao “Harold” Yu becomes eligible in time for the team’s Dec. 26 Nike/Les Schwabe Tournament in Oregon.
Of course, Chevalier, a former standout guard at Cleveland High in Reseda and Cal State Northridge, assuredly is a better coach than he was at this time a year ago, when he was in his first season as the head of the program (he was the interim head coach for the Trailblazers’ State Regional upset loss to Saint Augustine in 2017).
Over the course of last season – capped by the team’s remarkable run of consecutive Regional and state champion victories over Foothills Christian, Bishop Montgomery, Etiwanda and Sacramento Sheldon – Chevalier was able to find a way to mesh a group of talented players (including Duane Washington Jr., now playing quite well at Ohio State) into the best team in California.
There is still a lot of meshing to be done, despite the dominance displayed Saturday night.
But Chevalier understands that – which is a big part of the process: Section and State titles aren’t won in November, no matter how overwhelming the victories come. But the paths to success in February and March are shaped by decisions coaches make well before then and how players (yeah, and their parents, too) respond to them.
“This was a great opportunity for us to ‘grow’ as a team the past few days (the squad stayed in a San Diego hotel since Wednesday night),” Chevalier (PICTURED) said afterward.
“And playing such a well-coached team (Mike Haupt and Saint Augustine), with two very good players (6-6 juniors Chibuzo Ago and Luke Haupt) is only going to help us become a better team.”
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