Rip Van Holmgren

by Bryan Holmgren

It’s been a while since I last weighed in. Hope I remember how to do this…

Over the last month or so I’ve begun to take note of an alarming trend. Maybe you can connect the dots for me.

It started on one of my nights off while watching WSU/Texas Tech from home – a game the Shockers trailed by something like 17 points at halftime. I was so inspired by their effort up to this point that I fell into a deep sleep on the couch. When I came back to reality I was surprised to see that WSU had miraculously managed to tie the game up. And while they eventually lost, I was more anxious to figure out what the heck had happened while I was out (Clevin Hannah happened, I was later told).*

* This was one of the games Bruce Haertl was doing the TV play-by-play for. Rest assured it was (probably) not his work – more likely the poor effort of the team – that put me under.

It occured again a couple of weeks later. I was taking in that soon-to-be-iconic cinematic masterpiece “Kung Fu Panda” (thanks Red Box) when my eyes became droopy and I drifted off. It felt like only a couple of minutes but I awoke to find that Jack Black’s character had somehow morphed from fat panda bear screw-up to Kung Fu master. I finished the movie but am still, even now, curious as to what happened* (some sort of training montage?) to complete this transformation.

* Obviously I could have re-watched that part, but the movie was due back by 9 and I didn’t want to be charged an extra dollar.

The trend continued last week while I was covering East and North. I was shocked by how well the Redskins played, pressuring the Aces, running the fast break and narrowly missing out on what would have been their second upset of an upper-division City League foe in less than a week.

Do you see where I’m going with this? Strange things happen when I fall asleep. The first two literally. North more figuratively.

Point is, I couldn’t have named a North High player to save my own life coming into the season. They were picked second to the bottom in the league, won just three games last year and returned very little off that squad. But out of nowhere they’ve morphed into one of the league’s most entertaining and surprisingly competitive squads.

Have they arrived yet? Nope. A letdown, overtime loss to South the night after the East game brought them back to earth a bit off a 3-1 start. Southeast furthered that reality check on Tuesday. But there are still some good things going on here – especially with most of the core group only juniors.

Gary Squires – who spent time at Carroll and Kapaun in the late 80’s and early 90’s – is the mastermind. But what maybe seemed like an overnight transformation in my mind and in the minds of many others, has actually been a much more calculated process.

Before taking on the head coaching job this year, Squires ran the JV at North and had the opportunity to do some hands-on stuff with much of the current varsity. So while most of these guys are new to the big stage, they aren’t new to Squires.

With just one player over 6’1 the idea is keep the pace as fast as possible. Let point guard Chekiel Wright push the ball up the court and create. Let the deceptively athletic twins Brison and Briston White slash and shoot on the offensive end and create turnovers with their speed on the defensive end. 6’4 forward Spencer Robertson runs the floor as well as many guards. At 5’11 Brison can dunk comfortably and threw a couple down against East.

The challenge at the moment is figuring out how to reign in some of the group’s more aggressive mistakes without eliminating the positives that go along with their style of play. North made almost two third of its shots from the field – many of them easy looks off of fastbreaks – and made life tough for East in the full court. But they also turned the ball over something like 33 times. Still it was the best ballgame I’ve seen all season.

There are steps to be taken yet, but so far so good for North.

***

Allow me to put forth an analogy.

Let’s say – hypothetically – I buy an engagement ring (not a large one – I’m making a sportscaster salary) and pop the question to a beautiful blonde (who – just for the sake of the analogy –says “yes.”) My family and friends are thrilled, naturally asking when the date will be set for.

“I’m not sure,” I say a few weeks after the engagement. “I actually was kind of thinking I might rather marry this cute brunette I met at TGI Friday’s. Not that [the blonde] is out of the picture. I just need to think about it some more. But it’s definitely down to those two.”
Another few days pass and they ask me again, wondering if I’ve made my decision.

“Yes, those are definitely my top two. [The blonde] is still my fiancé, though [the brunette] is probably the front-runner at this point. But I’m also going on a date with a red-head I met on e-harmony. So she might be in the mix. In fact, I’m kind of sifting through my inbox and there are a few others I might check out, as well.”

“But your wedding date is coming up in February.”

“Yeah. That might wait a little bit. No sense in hurrying. I am the most eligible bachelor in the country.”

Can you guess who I’m channeling?
Need a hint?

Maybe a certain local standout with an oral commitment to a major ACC school, who’s seriously flirting with a PAC-10 power while mulling his options with a certain in-state university.

Honestly, I have no problem with Bryce Brown taking his time in this decision-making process. It’s his future and he wants to find the right fit. I just find the whole thing to be a little silly at times. Wake me up when he signs a letter of intent. This is one event I don’t mind sleeping through.