Boys basketball getting some regional respect

By Kevin Lonnquist

Reputation is earned. For years, Dallas-Fort Worth's boys basketball royalty has resided in the Dallas ISD, or in Crowley, or in Southern Dallas County between DeSoto, Cedar Hill and Duncanville. The Arlington schools also have produced their fair share of quality teams.

And it always seemed that Northeast Tarrant County was dismissed because it carried the reputation of playing a slower, less-exciting brand.

So the fact that District 7-5A is putting together a very interesting race may or may not have the average basketball fan's attention.

But it should.

"Guys are starting to learn that we can play over here," Keller Fossil Ridge coach Zack Myers said. "I think people had their eyes opened in non-district. Coppell has always had a good team. [Justin] Northwest had a great run at the Whataburger tournament. [Keller] Central has played some good teams. Everybody has some quality wins."

Through the first portion of the season, this much is clear: Your team better be physical. Your team better be ready for the fourth quarter. And your coach better be ready to make the right decisions at the end.

Through the first 16 games, nine have been decided by eight points or less. Now, that may not sound any different from what other districts go through. But there's something about this season that has a lot going for it.

First, no one is going to run away from the rest of the competition. Every team has lost. At one point, there was a three-way tie for first place.

Then, you'll probably have about four teams finish with 20 or more wins including Keller Central, Coppell, Keller Fossil Ridge and Justin Northwest. Each squad has surpassed 15 wins with more than half of the district season remaining.

Mix that together and those first two weeks in February should be really entertaining as playoff berths are at stake.

"There's no question you have six teams in this district who have a legitimate chance to get to the playoffs and a seventh who is going to have a say of who gets in," Northwest coach Mike Hatch said. "It's really going to come down who performs, who shoots free throws well and who takes care of the basketball."

It's debatable if the parity will result if a 7-7 team will get into the playoffs. But what isn't debatable of how the dynamics of the district have shifted. Instead of this being guard-heavy, the play in the low post has really been the story.

There's 6-8 Joel Bolomboy at Keller Central, 6-6 Brandon Conley at Fossil Ridge, 6-8 Jett Raines at Coppell and 6-8 Andrew Mitchell and Denton Guyer. Each big man's presence has created such a problem that it has caused coaches to play the game differently.

"You definitely are going to see more zone defense than straight man, I think," Hatch said. "Last year, it was more man. But these guys are hard to match up against. They just control the boards. You just have to find a way to pull him away from the basket."

Perhaps the greatest compliment of all was when a coach called Myers to get his information and naively didn't know what district Fossil Ridge played in. Once Myers told him, the coach responded, "Well, you don't have any gimmes in that one."

A strong postseason performance would help solidify the district's reputation. But for now, the word is spreading.

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