LANGLEY — Broken down to its most essential parts, North Vancouver’s Argyle Pipers are a team filled with individual success stories.
A 6-foot-5 post who just accomplished in the past four days what it may well have taken her all of last season to accomplish.
An irrepressible inside-outside scoring threat, who after copping Most Valuable Player honours told her interviewer “… I want to play basketball every day. If I don’t go on the court, there’s just something wrong with that day. I have to touch the court.”
And a point guard who epitomizes her position so ably that the better she gets, the more you notice her teammates.
And after watching the way the Pipers defeated two dynamic teams over a period of just about 24 hours to win the Tsumura Basketball Invitational’s Super 16 championship title on Saturday night at the Langley Events Centre, you couldn’t go wrong in telling their story by focusing on any of the three aforementioned plotlines.
Yet it was clear in the moments following Quad-A No. 3 Argyle’s 77-61 title-game win over the No. 2-ranked Riverside Rapids of Port Coquitlam, a victory which came hot on the heels of Friday’s 72-60 semifinal win over Surrey’s Double-A No. 1 Holy Cross Crusaders, that the team’s head coach had already established with his players the only narrative they needed to follow in order to define what success would mean for them.
“I’ve told this group that we’ve always had really good players at Argyle, like forever,” Anthony Beyrouti said following the post-game presentation of individual and team awards, “and that being a great player doesn’t really differentiate you at Argyle. We’ve have had great football players, basketball players, soccer players. It’s a thing. But when you can win as a group, it changes everything. And so being a team that wins is something that separates you.”
And perhaps most importantly, when the team in question is led, like it was on Saturday, by an eight-player rotation in which all but two were seniors, there was an under-rated but essential built-in resilience factor which ultimately proved pivotal over four days of navigating what was a colossally-tough 16-team bracket.
Contrast that with a Riverside team which has just two seniors this season, and who as a group found it hard to reclaim the same mental tenacity it showed the night before in a 68-64 win over the tier’s No. 1-ranked, two-time defending B.C. champion Seaquam Seahawks of North Delta, and it’s no surprise that in a game of runs, the Pipers’ ability to counter-punch eventually provided the knockout blow.
Argyle opened the game on a 10-0 run, then put an 11-0 run on Riverside to lead 31-16 after the Rapids had scored the first basket of the second quarter.
Riverside’s lone forceful counterpunch was 12-1 run to start the third quarter, and take a 36-35 lead.
But with the game tied 42-42, Argyle used a 17-6 run to go into the final quarter leading 59-48.
“You’ve got to teach young kids that you’ve got to compete every night,” said Rapids’ head coach Paul Langford. “But about 20 hours later it’s hard to come back from a real a heavyweight battle between what was considered the No. 1 (Seaquam) and and No. 2 (Riverside) teams last night. And now, we go play No. 3 (Argyle), a team that at the start of the season was originally ranked No. 1. Like that’s a battle. I mean, that’s going to be one of the stories lines. I’m sure (No. 4) MEI, (No. 5) GW Graham and some others are going to have a say. And our team’s got to get used to it. Right now, they’re not used to it. A couple of them are, not the whole gang.”
AN MVP WITH A JOY FOR THE GAME
Argyle’s team mantra can’t be taken lightly.
Yet neither can the individual parts that go into making the whole.
On Friday, Argyle’s 6-0 foot senior guard/forward Isabella Miljkovic scored a game-high 27 points and grabbed 20 rebounds in her team’s 12-point win over Holy Cross, a game in which her matchups best dictated that she play inside and then out.
Over the course of her game, she knocked down five triples.
On Saturday against Riverside, Miljkovic took a different tack.
She came out firing from the outside, and for the most part stayed there, this time scoring a game-high 24 points.
Yet this time, she hit six triples, including four in the first quarter.
Afterwards, she was awarded TBI Super 16 MVP honours.
Funny thing, on Friday night when she did her best work inside en route to collecting 20 rebounds, her head coach Beyrouti offered an appropriate NBA comp.
“She can do everything… she’s kind of like a LeBron James out there,” said Beyrouti. “She’s shooting, she’s driving, she’s rebounding, she’s doing everything. It’s nice to watch.”
On Saturday, the ingredients in that resume seemed to have changed to fit the more perimetre-oriented game she turned in against Riverside.
“You know, the thing I like about her game the most is her passing ability,” Beyrouti said. “You know, we could probably play her a little bit at point guard with her ability to get people the ball, her ability to find open players, her ability to really make the next pass and the great pass, get people going and be a great teammate.”
Ask Miljkovic herself, and you actually wind up getting the most accurate answer.
“Luka Dončić… 100%,” she said of LeBron’s teammate with the Lakers. “I really like how he passes it. He’s just entertaining to watch, you know, and he has the basketball IQ. In my opinion, IQ is better than any physicality or anything. I love how he gets through the lane and that’s what I’m trying to do as well. And his shooting is on point.”
And by way, her full quote, the one we teased at the top of the story: “I want to play basketball every day. If I don’t go on the court, there’s just something wrong with that day. I have to touch the court. Basketball is basically like my whole life. I feel like it just means so much to me. I watch it. I play it. I talk about it. All my friends are surrounded with basketball. I want to surround myself with people that will lift me up and who understand the grind and everything.”
WOODWARD COMES OUT OF THE WOODWORK
On Friday, after her presence in the post helped wear down Holy Cross, Argyle’s 6-foot-5 senior post Eva Woodward answered the bell once more against Riverside.
From 14 points on Friday to 23 points Saturday, her confidence is undeniable, and her coach doesn’t hold back when it comes to describing just how far she has come.
“I mean, a year ago, we couldn’t have dreamt of her progression the way it’s come,” Beyrouti said Friday. “She’s come a long way. She’s really focussing. She’s strong inside. She’s spent a lot of time getting stronger in the weight room. And she’s finishing. Her touch is nice, her handle is nice. She’s really taking her game to the next level for sure.”
On Saturday, with her scoring totals upped, despite her struggles from the free throw line, he added: “She’s getting way more confident. She’s getting way stronger inside and more assertive, and you’re seeing it. She wouldn’t have scored 50 points the whole season last year, and she scored more than that at this tournament.”
Ask Woodward about it, and to her, it’s the trust she’s gotten from the team that has allowed her to take her game to the next level.
“Oh, yeah, I’m feeling pretty good thanks to Anthony Beyrouti and all the other coaches,” she said Saturday. “They have a new confidence in me. Everyone does. So it makes it easier to have confidence in myself. Especially my teammates, like Bella and Sadie (Danks) and Sophie (Nicholson).”
Danks is the the team’s senior point guard, while the 6-foot-2 Nicholson is the third member of the team’s starting frontcourt group and an excellent medium-range shooter who finished with eight points on Saturday.
A POINT, WELL TAKEN
And with all the attention on the front court, it’s easy to overlook the culture, chemistry and consistency of the Argyle guard rotation.
Seniors Cassidy Nugent and Taylor Johncox, and Grade 11s Kelsey Hungle and Hazel Pontin are all stalwarts, and so is the aforementioned 5-foot-9 senior Sadie Danks.
While others might be looked on more as long-range shooters, Danks is clearly a facilitator first, and when that role happens to come on a team blessed with size, such a point guard needs to first be emboldened by the true principles of team.
To that end, Beyrouti goes back in time to the 1988 NBA Rookie of the Year with the New York Knicks for his best comp.
“I’m going to do a throwback here,” he prefaces when asked about Danks, who scored seven points Saturday but meant so much more. “She’s like a Mark Jackson. She’s looking up the court, she’s getting people involved early. She’s leading the team. She’s getting people in the right spots. She’s playing defence. Today, I thought she was very good defensively. She took care of the assignments that we gave her. And then she gets everybody involved, right? And when we’ve got as much challenge as we have, you need somebody who’s willing to sacrifice for the betterment of the team. That’s her. She gets everybody else the ball, She takes care of everybody and it’s really cool to watch.”
Which, as we close, brings us back to the start.
“…when you can win as a group, it changes everything. And so being a team that wins is something that separates you.”
NOTES — Riverside’s Grade 10 guard Francesca Salonga continues to score no matter who she happens to be facing. After scoring 20 points against Seaquam on Friday she dropped a team-high 18 against Argyle. Grade 11 post Henna Virk added 12 more for the Rapids, while Kaitlin Vergara and Ari Brown added eight apiece.
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