EVERETT
On the Friday morning after Thanksgiving members of the Archbishop Murphy boys basketball team weren’t shopping or sleeping or hanging out with friends: They were crammed into a gymnasium for a two and a half hour practice that ran closer to three hours.
No time to waste with basketball season and a match up with Kamiak high school just days away.
This year the Wildcats have a new coach, a revamped offense, and they hope to start a new tradition: Going back to state.
“We’re trying to keep up with the football team, which has been phenomenal,” first year coach Greg Turcott said. “We want to carry the torch (from one season into the next).”
Long dominant on the football field, last year the Archbishop Murphy boys reached 2A state for the first time in school history before losing to Mark Morris and Ellensburg. The Wildcats previously qualified for state one other time, in 2004, as a 1A school. But with results come expectations.
“Last year is last year,” senior small forward and co-captain Nate Hards said. “It’s great that we went to state last year but we want to make a run this year with a new coach and a new team.”
“I think expectations for themselves are high,” Turcott added of his team. “They want to be and feel like they should be one of the top teams in the league.”
But as much as Murphy hopes to continue the success it had last year, there is no denying that this is a completely different team from the one that made state.
For starters, the Wildcats have a new head coach. Jerry Zander resigned in May after eight seasons to attend the University of Arizona and the administration hired Turcott to replace him.
Turcott previously coached two years at Kamiak, last year helping the Knights qualify for 4A Districts on the back of an exciting 52-51 play-in victory over Mountlake Terrace in overtime.
Archbishop Murphy also graduated five seniors, among them senior big men Brendan Sherrer and Ryan Bourke.
That means the Wildcats won’t be able to rely on size and rebounding to win ball games anymore, the very things that allowed Murphy to defeat Bellingham, South Whidbey and Cedarcrest during their state-qualifying run through the district tournament last year.
Turcott plans to counter this by stressing the finesse aspects of the game: Speed, passing and shooting.
“Last year was a post-oriented team,” Turcott said. “Real physical, real big, rebounded really well … This year we have kids that can shoot can pass very well … We’ll be more like (the Phoenix Suns) and less like the Green Bay Packers playing basketball.”
It’s a change the team appears to be buying into.
“Definitely, we don’t have height,” senior point guard and co-captain Davon Fleming said. “But we have more quickness, more potential and are more talented.”
“Players are more versatile (this year),” Hards said. “There’s lots of cutting, it’s more free but more structured.”
Fleming and Hards will be counted on to help lead the new-look Wildcats, as will returning senior forward JD Melton.
The Wildcats should also receive contributions from talented sophomore Paris Felder, post Brock Otis, guard Zach Smith and juniors Casey Wagner and Jerad McCann.
Melton, a standout receiver, did not practice Friday as the football team prepared to play Lynden in the state semifinals on Saturday. Senior OL JJ Quinlan was also unavailable. Waiting for football season to end is a bit of a tradition for the Murphy basketball team, and Turcott downplayed the effect it has on the team.
“We’d like to have those guys,” Turcott said. “But we learned to play over the summer without them; we learned not to rely on those guys all the time. It’s good for the team. When they come back, everyone has a little bit more confidence in themselves.”
When asked which schools the Wildcats hope to stay competitive with, both Fleming and Hards mentioned fellow Cascade Conference member King’s, which placed fifth at 1A state last year. Fleming also talked about South Whidbey, which defeated Murphy 58-40 during the regular season last year to secure a spot at districts, and then was subsequently upended by Murphy at districts in a loser-out game.
But before playing a single Cascade Conference opponent, the team has to face their new coach’s old school, Kamiak, on Tuesday. And Murphy’s 21-13 loss to Lynden in the state football semifinals assures that the Wildcats will have a full squad.
“We have a great group of kids that really love to play the game and we’re working hard to be the best team we can be,” Turcott said.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
