BY HOWARD TSUMURA
VARSITY LETTERS
LANGLEY — There was no time to stand still.
The season-long battle between No. 1 Spectrum and No. 2 Dover Bay, one which ultimately manifested itself for a fifth and final time as the finale to an incredible 2024-25 B.C. senior boys basketball season, never pretended, for even a second, to be anything but a living, fluid and ever-evolving thing.
And that’s why, heading into Saturday’s provincial Quad-A championship finale at the Langley Events Centre, it was impossible to gain a consensus on its final outcome, despite the fact Saanich’s Thunder had won three of the previous four meetings over their Nanaimo foes.
“We knew going into the next one, it didn’t matter,” Spectrum head coach Tyler Verde explained of the rivalry’s brand of chess, one which seemed to guarantee a level of constant innovation to the point that the previous result would be meaningless the next time they met.
“It was close. Every time we played them, it almost felt like a final.”
By the time Saturday night rolled around, and a sold-out Arena Bowl crowd collectively inhaled in that brief moment between the end of O Canada and the opening tip, it felt that way again, only this time it actually was for real.
Call it the final final between two teams so familiar with each other — not only their respective tendencies but their personalities as well — that scheming and in-game re-scheming had the potential to climb to a different level.
And it was a final between, as hard as it was to believe, two defending B.C. champions, with Spectrum trying to repeat as top-tiered champs against a Dover Bay team looking to pull the trick again after winning it all at Triple-A last season.
Seemingly on cue, as if pre-ordained by the basketball gods above, an 11th hour rally by Dover Bay had pulled it to within four points with just under five minutes remaining.
But then Spectrum, sensing the gravity of the moment, later knocked down its two biggest shots of the game on back-to-back possessions, each with the shot clock set to bleed dry, triggering a parade to the free throw line en route to an 81-66 Thunder victory.
“I am incredibly proud because I know how hard this is to do,” Spectrum’s Verde said, his statement echoed by the game’s history books, which seemed to shout back in confirmation the full measure of what the Thunder had accomplished:
*Becoming the second team this century to win top-tiered titles in back-to-back seasons, and the first since Vancouver’s Kitsilano Blue Demons managed the feat in 2001 and 2002. (Burnaby South also won two B.C. titles in 2020 and ’22 with the Covid-cancelled year in between).
*Winning what was the first all-Vancouver Island top-tiered B.C. championship final since Nanaimo beat Oak Bay 47 years ago in the 1978.
*Becoming the first top-tiered repeat champions from Vancouver Island since Oak Bay, 51 years ago, claimed the second of back-to-back titles in 1973 and ’74 under the legendary Don Horwood.
You know, if you had the chance to rent a movie theatre to watch the game tape from the four previous meetings this season between these two teams, you’d be eating popcorn from mid-morning until it was time to go home and have dinner.
And in the viewing would come the visual proof that no one scheme, set, tactic or belief from either team could stand alone and unchallenged without modifications the next time around.
Each game involved two teams ranked, at worst, in the top three in B.C. all season, and guided by two phenomenal head coaches in Spectrum’s Verde and Dover Bay’s Darren Seaman.
So what was going to make the difference come Saturday?
All I could think was that the devil would be in the details.
THE TECHNICAL SIDE OF ZONE OFFENCE
It was back on Feb 27 at Oak Bay Secondary when the host Bays fell 90-80 to Dover Bay in the Vancouver Island championship’s back-door challenge game for the zone’s second-and-final berth to the B.C. tournament.
The tactics employed in that game by Oak Bay head coach Chris Franklin gave Spectrum coach Verde pause, and ultimately the decision to re-think the way his team was going to deploy its offence on the solid chance on the solid chance that it might well face Dover Bay in the B.C. final in just over a week’s time… a Dover Bay team Verde was almost certain would play zone defence.
“I watched that challenge game like probably five times.” Verde said Saturday after his team managed to gain the late separation it needed to win the title in a game that was actually a lot closer than the final score indicated.
“I just studied it, watched how the (Oak Bay) players matched up in (Dover Bay’s) zone,” said Verde. “Then I just put my players into spots where I felt they could expose it.”
Truth be told, however, it was filled with risk.
Attacking a great zone defence like Dover Bay’s, especially with a player like the Dolphin’s 6-foot-7 guard Frank Linder able to so quickly bust apart schemes with his both his physical prowess and mental understanding, put an asterisk alongside any new set of opposition Xs and Os.
Still, while admitting that zone offence has been a weak point for his team, and that Dover Bay was sure to respond by playing a zone defence, Verde had to measure the risk-reward. In the end he elected to install a new scheme.
Of course the idea behind a completely revamped Spectrum zone offence was to find away to keep Linder as far from the baseline as he could be pulled in the half-court scheme, while at the same time freeing about a one-steamboat, two-steamboat count of open space and time along the baseline for the Thunder’s 6-foot-9 Tyler Felt to be fed the ball. And even when if he wasn’t scoring, just establishing his touch deep invited either scramble plays in the paint or free throw opportunities.
Off the top it worked.
Dover Bay started fast on offence to build an 11-4 lead, but once Spectrum got comfortable with its new scheme, it peeled off a 19-4 run over an eight-minute span between the first and second quarters to wrest away full momentum from the Dolphins to take a 23-15 lead.
On the day, Felt finished 11-of-19 from the field for a team-high 22 points, with all 11 of his buckets coming in the paint.
Yet the beauty of Saturday’s game was its chess.
Dover Bay made a switch to its scheme by having Linder move to the middle of the floor and directly guard the Spectrum’s all-important high-post passer.
The results were telling.
If the Dolphins weren’t creating turnovers, they were forcing Spectrum to players to lose focus and with it their rhythm, and that combination of a lack of ball movement and settling for threes brought the Nanaimo squad right back into the game behind a 22-11 run which had pulled them to within a possession at 55-52 early in the fourth quarter.
“We have been switching from man to zone the whole season and we played zone today,” began Linder, who also found the time to score a game-high 31 points. “I mean, it worked and it didn’t work at the same time. We changed up the zone to stop the shooter and to stop Felt, but I mean, they are an amazing team. They worked great together and they found a way.”
From that point forward, it was two great teams playing on equal terms, each looking for those special plays which would ultimately define themselves as B.C. champions.
Foul trouble to the Dolphins’ forward Hudson Trood and to Spectrum guard J Elijah Helman kept both players off the floor for extended stretches, yet in spots down the stretch drive, it continued to give the Thunder enough of an edge to create late separation.
“We had a tough time dealing with their zone,” admitted Dover Bay head coach Seaman. “We made adjustments so (Felt) wasn’t getting easy catches and it worked for a while. But we couldn’t get stops and we couldn’t get shots. It was really that simple.”
THE HUMAN SIDE OF ZONE OFFENCE
The final game of a season for any high school coach, is in every sense, the end of a chapter in terms of working with and helping nurture a student-athlete’s pursuit of growth and excellence on the basketball court.
Spectrum’s zone offence, in and of itself, could rightly be called the biggest single factor in its ability to repeat as provincial champions.
Yet if you really examine what the schematic asked of its players, what you’re left with is a kind of behind-the-scenes reveal in how willing each was to play a role in their team’s success by either stepping out of their comfort zone to take on larger responsibility, or accepting a role of sacrifice so that the deception the scheme required for success was able to fully play itself out.
And in this regard, both star guard Justin Hinrichsen and the lesser-known guard Harper Kopp each wound up playing indispensable roles.
Kopp, a 6-foot-4 senior guard, was, without question, the single biggest surprise of Saturday’s game.
Entrusted as the team’s top option at the high post spot, he shot 7-of-10 from the field, his 15 points the second-highest on the team behind Felt, while dishing out a trio of assists and turning the ball over just twice in 38 minutes.
“It was funny, coming back home (on the ferry) a few guys that are around the team came up to us and ‘Who decided to put Harper there? That was a stroke of genius’ but we didn’t know it was going to work,” Verde said of he and his assistant coaches James Pitblado and Eric Hinrichsen.
“There have been flashes from him his whole career” added Verde of Kopp, whom he also moved out wider shorter stints as he shifted regular starting guard Helman and reserve Matteo Williamson into the spot as part of a three-man rotation. “He is so fast, long and athletic. He just needed to put it together and figure it out. He still has so much to learn but I think he could be a very good college player. Camosun… hook him up, please.”
Then there is Justin Hinrichsen, the UVic-bound 6-foot-5 senior who, on a macro scale, as a scorer, shooter and rebounder, largely sacrificed the full impact of his skillset his entire high school career so that his team’s core could become as vast as it has.
In a show of ultimate respect for how good Dover Bay’s Grade 10 point guard Joe Linder is, Verde asked Hinrichsen to stay high in the offence’s zone scheme, as much to force the younger Linder to have to respect the laws of geography and remain in his neighbourhood.
“We would like to have put Justin in (at the high-post) but Joe, he’s so pesky that we needed Justin out there,” said Verde. “And so when I talked to him about it, I said ‘You know this means you’re not going to shoot it as much?’ and he’s like ‘I don’t care.’ He is so selfless.”
But the bottom line when it came to Spectrum’s adapatability on Saturday?
“The last time we played Dover Bay (at the Vancouver Island championships), they played zone,” said Verde. “It was completely different how we attacked it this time. Two completely different offences in a week-and-a-half.”
IN THE HEAT OF BATTLE… RESPECT
Saturday’s battle, and it was a battle par excellence, brought out the best in both teams.
With 3:38 left in the game, and with Spectrum’s Felt getting the ball on the wing, Dover’s Joe Linder made a great move to get his hands on the basketball and force a jump ball.
Felt, like his counterpart, is as competitive as they come, and for a hair of a millisecond, that shone through.
Yet before you could complete a full exhalation, there was Felt patting Linder on the back.
“You know, it’s definitely a rivalry and we wanted to beat them bad every time, and same the other way,” said Verde. “But at the end of the day, like especially between the players, there was so much respect as well. It’s a mutual respect.”
Verde then paused before continuing.
“It’’s funny, a bit weird but, maybe because he kind of reminds me of how I kind of played (in high school), but like Van Suiter,” the Spectrum head coach continued of the 6-foot-3 senior shooting guard with Dover Bay, and a player who owns one of the smoothest, most effortless and accurate three-point shots in the province.
“He didn’t get an all-star (award) at the (Vancouver) Island championships and I thought that was ridiculous. I thought he should have been first team. Like he was their best player at Islands. At provincials he got an all-star and I was super happy and I told him that, too. It’s pretty cool seeing these kids you have seen grow and play… even though we’ve never really spoken, to just have that mutual respect thing.”
On Saturday, in his final high school game, Suiter hit three threes and finished with 15 points, the same as teammate Joe Linder.
TIME FOR THE UNHERALDED
As if often the case, many championship journeys somehow manage to skirt absolute disaster along the road to gold.
And in the case of the Spectrum Thunder, they barely managed to avoid a premature demise the night before title game, escaping with an 81-79 win over St. George’s in the semifinals.
Of course that was the game in which Saints’ superstar Dorian Glogovac scored a tournament-high 53 points, the fifth highest single-game total in top-tiered boys B.C. championship history.
To win that game by the skin of your teeth and then play a title game less than 24 hours later?
“When you go through that you learn so much,” said Paul Eberhardt, the West Vancouver senior boys coach and the analyst on the TFSETV.ca livestream of Saturday’s championship game. “I said this to one of my colleagues, I think Spectrum is the favourite to win because they escaped yesterday. When you see a group of Grade 11s do what they did last year (to win the title), they’re way ahead in their development mentally and how they approach the game.”
To Verde, it’s an inner tenacity that reveals itself in the biggest moments.
“It could have gone either way but we were mentally prepared,” Verde said in reflection of the Saints win, noting the carryover that was present in what was likely the biggest shot of his team’s championship game win on Saturday.
“I just think about the shot that C.J. hit,” he said of his senior point guard C.J. Zuno, who finished with 10 points. “He hit’s that floater in the paint with one second on the shot clock… that is such a veteran shot. He had like eight assists, six rebounds, and he is listed at 5-8. He’s like 5-5. He reminded me of (Spectrum’s 2024 championships Top Defensive player) Gio (de Gracia), who had the game of his life last year.”
Delivered with 1:23 remaining, Zuno’s floater was a dagger in disguise, pushing the lead to 10 points (75-65), effectively a four-possession gap.
“When you think of our team, you don’t really think of C.J. unless you really know our team,” said Verde. “That is a big-time shot.”
Helman, as energetic a player as your apt to see in any B.C.’s, had earlier hit a three-pointer with four seconds on shot clock to make the score 73-63, and the sum total of those two clock-bleeding buckets were huge in turning the game into a parade to the free throw line for the Thunder. Helman, perfect in seven trips to the free throw line, finished a point shy of Felt with 21 on the night.
WHAT MATTERS MOST
Saturday’s season ended with Spectrum, over an amazing two-year run, capping a repeat title with its senior-laden class taking turns cutting down the championship net.
Yes, next season’s edition will be starting from scratch in terms of building its identity. It’s as vast a graduation of rotational talent as a title team can have. But the head coach states clearly that he is not looking for greener pastures.
“I have said this to very few people… we obviously are losing such incredible talent, but I am really excited for the challenge of trying to stay relevant and get back here,” Verde said. “Some people might say what’s next? Are you going to try to do this or that or maybe you’ll…. No. I just want to get back and my job is not done really at all, so…”
The next chapter begins.
And while graduating generational talent the likes of Dover’s Frank Linder, and Spectrum’s Felt and Hinrichsen does not grow on trees, little else changes when it comes to reaching student-athletes and nurturing them along a journey to become their very best.
When it reaches full bloom, like it did when Verde plugged his senior class into their various spots in a title-winning zone offence, there are simply no words to describe the feeling of human connection that can be achieved through coaching.
“It just shows how at the end of the day you put so much time in with these kids, over multiple years… and you have to build a trust in them and they have to trust you,” sums Verde.
“By putting my trust in Harper and Justin and Tyler and J, having to trust Harper in that spot, and CJ… at the end of the day, every one of us, we just want to win.,
“It didn’t matter who got MVP or all-stars. None of that matters. We just wanted to win as a group and (the players) have said this one almost means more because they are such a closer group than last year. They’ve spent more time together. They’re all seniors and they all got to grow together. We did it again, as a family.”
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