In front of a frenzied St. Patrick’s crowd, the St. John’s Eagles let a 12-point, fourth-quarter lead slip away to the host Celtics during the final game of the St. Patrick’s Senior Shamrock Tournament earlier this month.
Tied at 70, the Eagles took an inbound pass with 1.6 seconds on the clock. Shooting guard Will Hu caught the ball near half-court, pivoted and fired off a shot under pressure as the buzzer sounded. St. John’s won 73-70.
The talent of each starting Eagle — and their sixth man — is undeniable. If five can learn to play as one, the coach believes St. John’s will be unbeatable.
“Any one of these guys would start for any of the AAA or AAAA teams in the city,” said the head coach and St. John’s athletic director Jonathan Kinman.
“It’s really easy with these guys in the sense that they know exactly what needs to happen. It’s a matter of making it happen. They’re good enough that if they play like individuals, they could advance far. But they won’t win a championship. If they play like a unit, nobody can beat them.”
The teams, then ranked as the top two single-A senior boys basketball teams in B.C., fight it out among a handful of elite, competitive but small school teams every season, including West Point Grey Academy and Christian schools in Abbotsford, Langley and Richmond. Only two advance from the Lower Mainland regional tournament to the provincial championship in March. This is the tournament that matters, said Kinman.
“It’s a real battle just to get to the show. If you come out of the Lower Mainland zone, you’re going to do very well,” he said. “For us it all boils down to one game.”
Despite sitting at the top of the rankings all last season, St. John’s didn’t qualify for Provincials last year. They lost to St. Pat’s in the regional semi-final, their momentum suddenly halted with the loss, the clutch game their last of the season.
St. Patrick’s lost to the WPGA Wolves in the regional championship and the two went on to play in the B.C. final, with the Wolves winning again to claim the 2014 B.C. title.
The latest rankings put St. John’s at No. 3., a drop from their perch at No. 1. Kelowna’s Immaculata Mustangs now top the table and St. Pat’s is at No. 2. West Point Grey moved from ninth to eighth.
Week-to-week movement up or down the charts can pull a person’s ego in the same direction, and Kinman has learned how to decode the rankings without getting too swept up in the numbers.
“If someone is going to tell me I’m No. 1, I’m happy about that,” he said. “I’m happy but at the end of the day, it means nothing. What matters is what comes in March.”
St. John’s does not play league games in the Lower Mainland Independent Secondary School Athletic Association but enters a series of tournaments and plays exhibition games through the season.
Next week they host the 13th annual St. John’s Jam, a tournament that was held at the Kitsilano community centre until four years ago when St. John’s expanded to build the Gunn Gymnasium at the school on West 10th Avenue.
Senior starter Brydon Joe, 17, has developed in the St. John’s system and is one of two Grade 12 students on the team at the private, academically rigorous International Baccalaureate school. The five-foot-eleven point guard started at St. John’s in Grade 1, playing basketball in the courtyard until he was old enough to join an elementary school team.
Last year’s early elimination left a feeling he doesn’t want to repeat, especially after seeing the seniors end their high school career with such a loss.
“We could see their pain last year and we definitely don’t want to feel that this year,” he said. "It was pretty heartbreaking but I knew we had one more year.”
Joe said the team of individual talents is focused on communicating better as a team. “We’re a work in process. Once we gel, we’re bound to do great things,” he said.
Sahib Sharma, 17, is the only other senior playing for the Eagles. The six-foot-three “pure scoring machine,” according to the coach, feels the urgency to come together as a team.
“It seems so immediate," he said, "and we’ll just have to give full throttle until then."
