The King George Dragons start every basketball game with clean record: no wins, no losses.
This is what Vancouver’s defending AA/AAA senior boys city champions tell themselves although they are sitting pretty at 23-1 with a top-10 ranking in B.C.’s AA division. As of Jan. 23, they were no. 2 behind Burnaby’s St. Thomas More Knights.
The mindset keeps them fresh and motivated, detached from past results, said head coach Darko Kulic.
“Except for right now, I’ve never said our record aloud,” said Kulic, hush-hush on their success to downplay expectations after last year’s abrupt end to an equally promising season.
After winning the 2016 city title, the Dragons were knocked out of the fiercely contested Lower Mainland regional tournament, losing their chance to play under the spotlight at the B.C. Championships.
“Nobody wanted it to end. It ended anyway,” said Kulic. “We’re focussing on the day to day, not too far ahead. Possession by possession, game by game. There is a lot of competition this year.”
Plenty of heat to deal with, but the Dragons have a fire-breather of their own. Yoel Teclehaimanot is a starter who, Kulic said, flies under the radar as an unknown threat. Hard to imagine a player who has twice scored more than 50 points in a single season could remain unnoticed, but the Grade 12 point guard gets little fanfare.
He has garnered three tournament MVP nods so far this season, putting up 51 points in a single game and 53 in another. He was named the city championship MVP last year when King George won its first title in school history.
“He can throw a switch,” said Kulic. “The amazing thing is, he’s not a player a lot of people have heard of.”
Kyle Guerrero holds the same opinion of his teammate. “This guy is like a walking triple-double,” he said of Teclehaimanot. “I think he’s the best player in the province, bar none. I see what he can do on a good day and I’ve seen what he can do on a bad day, which is still a good day for 99 per cent of players out there.”
On the way to a convincing 86-61 league win over the Britannia Bruins on Jan. 30, the Dragons led by as few as three points but Teclehaimanot was the rallying point, at the top of the key on defence and back again when King George held the ball. On his way to scoring 19 points, he reassured the player who fouled an opponent shooting a three-point jumper. He drove to the net as the clock ticked down, landing painfully on his lower back.
He’s the same in practice, directing players to their spots like an on-court coach and pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of set plays until everyone is on board.
It’s like when Teclehaimanot scores a 50-plus-point game. It’s not easy --- until it is.
“The ball looks tiny, the hoop is huge and everything you do, the ball just goes in,” he said, laughing about the inexplicable effortless of it all. “We try this and we try that, and still this is going in and that is going in, so, might as well keep going with it.”
Note the “we” he speaks of. The Dragons call themselves a brotherhood and they will succeed as one. Besides, no one wants to repeat the devastation of last season when they were eliminated in a very tight Lower Mainland regional tournament that only qualifies two teams to provincials.
“After cities, I think our heads grew a little bit,” said Guerrero. “We started to think we were a lot better than we were, so the Mainlands came along and we were like, ‘Ok, we got this.’ But that is something we really learned for this year --- never let a loss get to your heart or a win go to your head.”
That’s where the Dragons perpetual 0-0 record comes from. Each day is a new one because King George knows how it feels when suddenly it’s the last one.
“Being in the moment of losing everything, right there when it was right in our grasp, it should have been ours, but it was gone and it’s so easy for things to disappear,” said Teclehaimanot. “Us coming back as seniors this year, we have a lot to prove.
The Dragons like to be underestimated and shrug it off when opponents can’t locate their Westend high school on a map or ask how far they’re located from the Surrey skytrain station.
“We have to have that attitude that we are underdogs,” said Guerrero. Despite an almost perfect record, the Dragons do not take their wins for granted.
“It just motivates us more, to be honest. It pushes us more to make a statement in this province that we are the underdogs but we’re going to come out and show you we’re going to prevail,” said Teclehaimanot “We want to go 1-0 every day.”
Downtown showdown
The Dragons are hot off a two-point semi-final win over third-ranked St. Michael’s at the Victoria City Police tournament in January, and are undefeated in the Vancouver public school league with 10 wins.
Tonight at 7:30 p.m. at King George secondary, they host Lord Byng, a AAA West Side school with an equally unblemished league record and nine wins. The Ghosts have height, a seasoned coach who has led the team for four years, and elite players such as Nathan Bromige.
The two teams will undoubtedly meet in next week’s playoffs, but whether they clash in the final on Feb. 10 depends on their performances through the tournament. One thing is sure, it won’t be a meeting to miss. Tonight is a preview.
Twitter: @MHStewart
