Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

prep basketball:

Findlay in familiar territory after 30-0 season

Despite new faces on the roster, Pilots to compete for national title

Rock Holiday Classic

Richard Brian

Findlay College Prep point guard Issiah Grayson (3) goes up for a basket against South Florida defenders during The Rock Holiday Classic basketball tournament at the Henderson International School in December.

Findlay College Prep basketball coach Mike Peck said another undefeated season is fantastic, that his players have earned every accolade from the stellar achievement.

In pre-game and halftime chats, he tells them that he and assistant coach Todd Simon put together a plan and arrange schemes tailored to their success.

The choice is yours, Peck tells the Pilots. We can’t make shots for you. We can’t block out and rebound. That’s you guys. Give that effort, and I think it’ll come out in our favor.

He relayed that mantra Monday. “Those are their wins,” said Peck, who is 62-1 piloting the Pilots.

Thursday, when pressed about going 30-0 again with nearly a completely new roster, about how he and Simon continue to produce such scintillating results with such turnover, Peck paused.

After a week off, Findlay will begin practicing next week for another run at a national championship, at the National High School Invitational in North Bethesda, Md., in early April.

“Our expectation levels are high,” Peck said. “I don’t always give pats on the back or say how well they’re doing. I probably don’t do that enough. I’m their biggest critic.

“We try hard to provide what our guys need, not just what they want and need. Those are two different things. Ultimately, if I want it more for them than they want it for themselves, it ain’t going to work.”

Turnover

Findlay went 30-0 last season and won its first two games in the National Prep Championship in the Bronx, N.Y. It lost the title game, by two points, to Hargrave Military Academy.

DeAndre Liggins, now at Kentucky, intentionally missed a free throw to give the Pilots a shot at a last-second tie to force overtime.

Curtis Dennis, redshirting at New Mexico this season, yanked down the rebound but had his shot blocked just before the buzzer.

Jorge Gutierrez (now at California), Jacques Streeter (Cal State Fullerton), Devidas Dulkys (Florida State) and Brice Massamba (UNLV) also played on that talented Findlay team.

The only links to last season are Carlos Lopez, a dervish of a center who has committed to UNLV, and junior power forward Godwin Okonji, a native of Nigeria who wants to play for Rebels coach Lon Kruger.

Powerful finisher Clarence Trent would have been a part of this season’s foundation but he bolted for The Patterson School in North Carolina in September.

So before the first game, Peck and Simon were dealing with a short deck. They had nine players, but Peck believed his roster would return to full strength with the imminent arrival of another big man from Africa.

Visa complications and embassy issues kept that from happening.

On guard

What Peck did have was a solid core of new blood, led by 6-foot-3 junior point guard “Smiling” Cory Joseph, whose contacts would prove invaluable, and 6-4 senior shooters Avery Bradley and D.J. Richardson.

Joseph, who relishes every second he spends on the court, paces the Pilots with 10.2 points, 6.5 rebounds and 5.1 assists. He’s shooting 51 percent from the 3-point arc.

Bradley, headed to Texas next fall, launches about 14 shots a game, hitting 55.6 percent of them, and averages team highs with 19 points and three steals. Richardson, bound for Illinois, averages 12.1 points.

Peck believes last season’s guards might have let up a tad on defense, believing they could “out-offense” opponents. That didn’t happen against Hargrave.

“It showed,” Peck said. “OK guys, guess what? Defense isn’t like a radio. You can’t turn it on and off. If you don’t practice and play with the mindset of defending, when you need to it’s going to be tough.

“That’s what I think happened to us.”

Junior Issiah Grayson, a 5-11 speedster, and 6-3 sophomore Rasham Suarez complete Findlay’s rich backcourt depth.

“We’re really good at the guard position,” Peck said. “That’ll be the key. We’re able to get after the ball. Offensively, we’re playing at a fast speed. We run and understand concepts.

“I’m not interested in trading anybody.”

There’s the door!

That doesn’t mean elite prep basketball doesn’t have player movement, though, as Peck experienced when Trent bolted to Carolina.

The seeds of two more departures started taking root Jan. 27 during practice at the Henderson International School, with which the Pilots are affiliated.

Someone had screwed up, but it wasn’t just one player. Before practice, all nine ran 10 up-and-backs, or 10 punishment laps, within an allotted time frame.

When they finished, when they were bent over and panting, guard Willie Hankins and forward Victor Rudd each ran their own 10 up-and-backs after each other.

“You don’t want to wear our stuff?" Peck yelled. “There’s the door! Don’t come back!”

Some of the Pilots had started to look sloppy, around the Henderson campus and on the team’s many cross-country road trips, in airports and on planes.

Peck doesn’t enforce a coat-and-tie dress code, but he doesn’t believe in non-conformity, or untucked shirts and the waistline of slacks or sweats falling below, uh, certain levels.

“They’ll get loose a little bit, cut a corner and not be as sharp on their game,” Peck said. “Or they won’t be on time for school or are doing something the wrong way. It was a little kick in the butt.

“To get back in line, we’ll go military on you.”

Less than two weeks later, Hankins left Findlay. Rudd, whose guardian is Hankins’s father Bill, was suspended from team activities last week and finished it by leaving the team for good.

Peck said a series of transgressions with both players will remain private. Academic, behavioral and internal issues are common, he said, at high levels of collegiate and prep basketball.

“That’s just the nature of the beast,” Peck said. “There will be conflicts at times, you just hope to resolve them and have kids that are receptive to meeting you halfway on some things.”

Word of mouth

Rudd was about to leave Las Vegas when 6-9 junior lefty Tristan Thompson fell out of favor with coach Danny Hurley at Newark (N.J.) St. Benedict’s.

Hurley booted Thompson from his squad after Thompson supposedly “showed up” Hurley -- disagreeing with the tactics Hurley wanted Thompson to employ on the court -- according to Hurley, during a game against Passaic Tech.

Joseph has played with Thompson, in the Toronto area, since the fourth grade. They starred on the Grassroots Canada summer traveling team.

Peck saw Thompson play over the summer and on a Findlay trip to Kentucky, where St. Benedict’s was also playing. Like Bradley, Thompson will play at Texas.

Thompson and Joseph are also tight with St. Benedict’s point guard Myck Kabongo, a top-five prospect in the Class of 2011 who has given a verbal commitment to Texas.

Don’t be surprised if Kabongo lands at Findlay next season.

Peck based his decision to take Thompson, considered a consensus top-five national recruiting figure and the best prospect ever to come out of Canada, on Joseph, who raves about Thompson.

“We took Cory’s input very seriously,” Peck said. “We made sure we were making the right decision for our program. What were the pros and cons? What issues did he come with, if anything?

“Sure enough, Cory said he’s solid. Cory has proven himself to us over the past six months. So, to us, that was worth its weight in gold.”

Thompson scored 17 points, most on dunks after power moves or rebounds, in his home debut for the Pilots last Friday night

In such a short time, he looked comfortable in the Findlay system. With three weeks to prepare for the national tournament, chemistry between seven Pilots and their newest teammate figures to tighten.

Engaging and colorful, Thompson said he’s fortunate to be at Findlay.

“His and Cory’s relationship give him a big head start,” Peck said. “He’s not abrasive or super aggressive. I think our guys are very receptive to him. He doesn’t come at you or rub you the wrong way. He goes with the flow.

“I don’t want to speak too soon or jinx anything, but all indications are that he is the fit and model for what we look for.”

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