A homegrown success

The players could have felt abandoned and resentful. The coach could have stewed and sulked, or settled for being just a place-holder.

They could have spent the season picking at their mutual scabs – and, maybe, still managed to grudge-win their way to the best basketball record in the school’s history.

Maybe. But it’s unlikely that it would have lasted and surely it wouldn’t have been as much fun as what’s happening right now at the Community Colleges of Spokane, the best little college basketball story going in an area perpetually preoccupied with big ones.

Yes, the best – the Sasquatch are 26-1. And true to their inclination to just handle whatever is thrown at them and move on, they’re not at all bedeviled that the “1” isn’t “0.”

“It would be nice to have an undefeated record,” allowed sophomore guard Eric Beal, “but at the same time it lets us know there are going to be games when we’re not having a good night and the other team is. It lets us know we can be beat.”

Well, their rivals are running out of time to crack the code.

The Sasquatch finish the regular season this afternoon at 4 against Big Bend at the Spokane Falls gym. After that comes the NWAACC tournament next week in Kennewick, where they will be obvious and prohibitive favorites.

It’s not just the 20-game winning streak or the season-long No. 1 ranking. More startling is that only one of the 26 wins has been as close as 10 points, and half have been by 20 or more. The loss – 75-69 at Peninsula – was sandwiched by blowout wins of 21 and 30 over the Pirates.

Not since Highline roared through the 1997 and ‘98 seasons 63-2 has the NWAACC seen such a dominant team. Among others, those HCC teams included Brian Scalabrine, still working on a seven-year NBA career.

No NBA candidates among the Sasquatch. Just five Greater Spokane League alums, a graduate of Northwest Christian, another from Post Falls, two cousins from Lewiston and a relative outlander from Chelan.

All of whom, barely a week before school began, had no idea who might coach them.

It was the first week of September when Eric Hughes, after six years at CCS, accepted a job with the NBA’s Toronto Raptors as an individual skills coach.

“You couldn’t be mad at him,” said sophomore Jon Clift. “How do you pass up an opportunity in the NBA? But it was a shock. The anxiety was not knowing who’d be the coach with practice just about to start.”

Mike Burns knew all about anxiety.

After three years as head coach at Eastern Washington, he’d been fired on the next-to-last day of May – inexplicably and unconscionably late, as any employment options in the college ranks had been filled. He had lined up “odd jobs – consulting, TV stuff,” but even when the CCS position opened, Burns didn’t immediately lunge at it.

“When you go through what I went through (at EWU) and how it went down, it kicks a dent in your tail,” Burns said. “But Eric and I were great friends and I knew how much these kids meant to him. I wasn’t going to do it half-heartedly.”

That was made clear the first practice. Burns ordered up a brutal 45-minute tip drill he normally might run for five. When he saw that not one player caved or complained he had an inkling that he’d come into a group “with more character and toughness than I’ve ever had.”

And some talent. Six Sasquatch have double-figure scoring averages. Burns jokes that if he could line up an NCAA Division II coaching job, he’d take all seven sophomores with him “and laugh my way to a couple of conference championships.”

But mostly he’s blown away by his new team’s approach. Here’s a favorite story:

Leading scorer Bo Gregg has been content to be sixth man all season, except for a couple of starts when freshman Matt Dorr was injured. When Dorr returned, Burns explained to Gregg that he’d be returning to his old role – and was told, “Coach, don’t say another word – I’ve been doing it all year.”

“But I’m concerned about Bo, so I go to Eric Beal and say, ‘Make sure you tell Bo how much we appreciate all he’s done.’ And Eric says, ‘Coach, Bo can start for me.’ Well, no, that’s not why I called him in. Then I go to Matt to tell him he’s starting that night and he says, ‘Bo should start.’

“At a two-year school, for a kid not to be looking to the future is extraordinary. These kids have really devoted themselves to this team – and being selfless about this team.”

And Burns’ future? The job market is about to turn over again, and turning down the pay stub of a Division I assistant’s job could be difficult.

“I’d love to stay here,” he said. “It’s the people you work with day to day here that make you want to stay. I can see myself 20 years from now looking back and thinking that the most fun I ever had coaching, or the best team I’ve ever coached, was this one. I’d be blessed to have another one like it.”