EVERETT — The Cascade boys basketball team begins the 2015-16 season in a position it hasn’t been in for quite some time — as the hunted and not the hunter.
With several key returning players and the additions of transfers Drew Magaoay and D’Andre Bryant, Wesco 4A coaches picked the Bruins, who earned six of a possible seven first-place votes, to win the league championship this season.
“I would say as a whole we haven’t been there before,” Cascade head coach Darrell McNeal said. “We’re definitely not like Jackson, where they’ve had a target for years.
“Having a target on you means you can’t have an off night. You can’t play bad. You’ve got stay together and you’ve got to play together. There are more demands. We have to play like a well-seasoned veteran team that can come together and not panic when teams make a run because the game of basketball is about runs. Having that target means we have to do things in practice and be ready for every situation that comes our way.”
It sounds like a lot for a group of high school kids to take on, which is exactly why McNeal said his job is to help relieve some of that pressure.
“Sometimes when you put pressure on, you kind of get out of what you’re trying to do,” McNeal said. “My biggest job is to just kind of keep things light and just coach the game and do everything to the best of our ability, but take it one game, one experience and one practice at a time.”
Magaoay, who transferred from Shorecrest, isn’t shying away from the pressure.
“I like it,” he said. “It’s fun.”
Whether or not it remains fun when the Bruins start playing games remains to be seen. McNeal and his coaching staff know being the favorite means always getting an opponent’s best effort. In order to prepare his team for that challenge, McNeal has tried to up the intensity in practice.
“I think it comes down to practice,” he said. “It’s about how hard we’re pushing, what our expectations are, what our demands are, shooting for perfection and playing hard every rep. I think that’s how we can eliminate some of those things.”
Having a player like Magaoay will certainly help. The senior guard has established himself as one of the best shooters in the area and was a first-team All-Wesco 3A/2A South selection a year ago.
Magaoay immediately becomes one of the Bruins’ top offensive options.
“Drew is a well-rounded player,” McNeal said. “He can get to the rim and he can shoot the ball. More importantly, he’s a great kid and he’s coachable. He wants to get better. He wants to improve and he wants to put the time in. That kid lives in the gym. In that aspect, you just love him. You love what he represents and what he’s all about.”
Magaoay should be quite the complement to senior forward Isaiah Gotell, who came on strong at the end of the 2014-15 season. Gotell emerged as one of the Bruins’ top players in the playoffs and helped them reach the state-regional round of the playoffs, where they lost to Woodinville.
Gotell’s effort in the playoffs was something McNeal had been waiting all season to see.
“He started to go harder down the stretch, I think we have to contribute a lot of that to his teammates,” McNeal said. “They were getting on him a lot harder. They were getting on him to post up. They were getting on to perform. They know what he’s capable of and it’s just pushing him to get to what he’s capable of. It finally started to show through towards the end where he wanted the ball. He wanted to play a little tougher and he wanted to play a little harder, but we had to go 20 games before we get to see that. This year the expectation is he’s got to come out and want it. He’s got to be hungry.”
Gotell has the endorsement of Magaoay, who is a teammate of Gotell’s on their select basketball team.
“He’s good,” Magaoay said. “He is, in my opinion, the best big guy in the league, by far. He’s very talented. He can score. He can pass. He’s athletic with dunks and alley-oops and what not.”
Gotell also has the ability to open things up for the guards, which Magaoay appreciates as a shooter.
“If he’s down there, they’re just so focused (on him),” Magaoay said. “It just makes the game easier for not only me, but the other guards. If I want open shots or open drives, it just opens everything up when you’ve got a dominant force down low.”
Kamiak head coach Cory West is familiar with what Gotell can do. The Knights played Cascade four times in the final month a season ago and struggled to find an answer for Gotell.
“He really came on right before playoffs,” West said. “If he continues and picks up where he left off last year and uses that as motivation of knowing that he can go hard and take over a game, I don’t see many players in the conference that are as hard to stop.”
West said Magaoay and Gotell are two reasons the Bruins are the favorite. Their size inside, Gotell is 6-feet, 6-inches tall, coupled with the ability of their guards will make it difficult for opponents to defend them.
“They’re going to be the hardest team to match up with,” West said. “To me, it’s going to be all about matchups and they cause the hardest matchups. If you’re a big team or a guard team, they have stuff everywhere.”
Of the two transfers, Magaoay is the more heralded player, but Bryant, a guard who transferred from Archbishop Murphy, gives the Bruins added depth.
“D’Andre is just a tough, hard-nosed player,” McNeal said. “He can handle the ball. He can shoot the ball. He can get to the rim. He’ll create for guys. He’s very spunky on defense. He’s going to give us a lot.”
The depth Bryant and others provide has McNeal, who is in his third season as the Bruins head coach, feeling like his team is capable of living up to the hype.
“I believe in my kids and I believe in what we’re trying to do here,” McNeal said. “Like any coach, you’ve got to look high and have high expectations. The sky is the limit as long as we come out and play and stay healthy.”
Aaron Lommers covers prep sports for The Herald. Follow him on Twitter at @aaronlommers and contact him at alommers@heraldnet.com.
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