Sattin’s a shooter
Dylan Sattin is a marked man.
Every moment of every East Valley game, opponents know where the 6-foot junior is on the basketball floor.
If they aren’t guarding him, he’s pointing out why they should – three points at a time.
Sattin is the Knights’ sharpshooter. The kind of outside jump shooter who opens up defenses and gives opposing coaches fits – a pure-shooting guard who stacks treys faster than a carhop at Mel’s Drive-In during the summer of ‘62
“Dylan is the kid opposing coaches focus on,” first-year East Valley coach Steve Henderson said. “They want to know where he is on the floor at all times. He’s the guy they work on stopping in practice.”
Through the 2004 section of the schedule, Sattin created 120 points and drilled 24 3-pointers – averaging just over 17 points per game. In the Knights’ first seven games, Sattin never failed to connect on at least three long-range jumpers. Against Clarkston, he drilled five 3-pointers and tallied a season-high 28 points.
“I’ve just been fortunate to get some good looks at the basket,” Sattin said. “Against Clarkston I was able to get hot and got some fast-break layins.”
Having an outside scoring threat is an important cog in the East Valley offensive scheme. The team is short on height – so much so that Henderson refers to his roster as “all guards and a forward.”
“It’s important to our offense to have Dylan hit the 3-pointer,” Henderson said. “When he’s hitting from the outside, teams have to defend him. That extends them out from the basket and opens things up for the rest of the offense.
“We’ve been a little dinged up and haven’t had everyone healthy to this point in the season, but once we get (junior guard) Jye Lanphere back and healthy, it’s going to be exciting to see what happens. Dylan hitting from the outside will create lanes where Jye can slash to the basket and create openings for Nick Atwood, who can step out and shoot the three, too.”
And it will create additional scoring opportunities for Sattin himself.
“It opens things up for me, too. It gives me chances to drive to the basket,” Sattin said. “It creates a whole series of things.”
Sattin wasn’t considered a prime outside scoring threat as a sophomore, growing into the role over the summer.
“I put in a lot of work shooting over the summer,” he said. “It wasn’t so much working on mechanics or anything like that. We would have shooting practice two or three times a week during the summer and I would come in and just shoot as many balls as I could.”
Equally at home creating his own shot or spotting up to catch and shoot, Sattin feels at home in the East Valley offense.
“I think you get that when you’ve played together and get to know each other,” Sattin said. “We played a lot of basketball together over the summer, so we got to know each other’s game pretty well. We have each other’s moves down pretty well.
“I feel really comfortable coming off a screen, catching the ball and shooting. I feel comfortable spotting up. But I am capable of manufacturing my own shot. Just so long as it comes in the flow of the offense.”
Henderson chalks the improvement up to maturity.
“I think Dylan has just kind of grown into his role,” he said. “The good thing about it is that he’s just a junior. He’ll be back and even better next year.”
Being a team’s designated marksman is a heavy responsibility. It takes a confident shooter who isn’t afraid to keep launching after a few misses.
“It helps that the coach has confidence in me,” Sattin said. “You just have to kind of keep shooting – you have to shoot through it and keep going.”
Sattin said the team is energized working with Henderson, an East Valley graduate who, at 23, is by far the youngest coach in the league and quite possibly the youngest coach in the state.
“I think we’re working harder than we did last year. We’ve got a good team chemistry and we all know coach Henderson. He was my coach as a freshman and he was the junior varsity coach last year. We all know him and we’re working hard to accomplish the things he wants us to do.”