A Royal dose of dominance

Adversity, at least in the general public's definition of the word, was uncharted territory for the Hopkins boys' basketball team. But Minnesota Class AAAA's No. 1 ranked Royals were being forced to fight through a realm of distress for the first time in the 2008-09 season on Feb.6, a little over 16 games into the team's so-far perfect season. Classic Lake Conference foe Edina went on a 7-0 run to take a 22-15 lead with 7:30 left in the first half at the Hopkins Lindbergh Center, putting the state's premier basketball team up against its first deficit of the year. In the stands, Rene Pulley, who has seen many of the Royals play in his prestigious Howard Pulley AAU program, was unfixed. He looked at Ben Johnson, a former all-state guard from DeLaSalle High School who is now an assistant coach for Northern Iowa, sitting close by. "Man, do you think this is the night?" Pulley asked his friend. This question, of course, pertained to the mortality of the Royals, who entered the game ranked No. 16 in the nation by USA Today and No. 6 by prepnation.com. Pulley, known as the Godfather of basketball development in Minnesota, was wondering if this would be the shocking night the same Hopkins team that had won each of its prior 16 games by an average of 31 points would fall. Hopkins coach Ken Novak Jr., who makes his hatred for calling timeouts known, stopped play and angrily called his team into the huddle. "I consider them a sign of weakness," Novak said of timeouts. "It basically means that I have to fix something that they should be smart enough to fix themselves. If I really wouldn't be resistant to it, I probably would have called it earlier instead of waiting until when we got down by seven. But I wanted to see if they could fight out of it, and they didn't, so I finally did call it. I didn't have to tell them much." A few heated words were apparently all the Royals needed. A little over a minute later, Hopkins was back on top, 23-22. The final was 90-53, in favor of Hopkins. So much for being 'the night.' "They've got everything," Pulley said of the Royals after the game. "Even when they play bad, they throw the ball away, and then all the sudden they just have to get it together for three minutes and the next thing you know, they're awesome." Weapons galore With four Division-I signees in their starting lineup, and undecided senior point guard Marcus Williams garnering attention from both D-I college football and basketball programs, the Royals are the epitome of talent. In fact, sometimes they may be too talented, with their turnover-laden lapse against Edina serving as a perfect example. "Our biggest strength is we can come at you from a lot of different directions, but that can be our biggest weakness, too," Novak explained. "We have a tendency to try to do things way too quickly. We try to score four points in one possession instead of just two. We try to do too much and we don't get the ball moving. If we just get the ball moving and the players moving a little bit, the game would come a lot easier. But we're trying to make the spectacular play way too often." With the run-and-gun, up-tempo style the Royals feature, spectacular plays are a common sight at a Hopkins game. It could be seen in an acrobatic alley-oop from Williams to 6-foot-8 senior forward Royce White, who is the No. 19 ranked recruit in the nation (according to rivals.com) heading to play for Tubby Smith and the Gophers; or in a rim-rocking dunk by 6-8 center Mike Broghammer, who is headed to play for Notre Dame; or in a slashing layup by 6-5 guard/forward Trent Lockett (No. 73 by rivals.com), who is headed to Arizona State; or in the quick release of 6-3 guard/forward Raymond Cowels. White, Broghammer, Lockett and Cowels are all among the 15 candidates for the Mr. Basketball Award, which goes to the top player in Minnesota. Hopkins ran through No. 2 ranked Henry-Sibley 77-66 on Jan. 9, wiped out No. 3 Robbinsdale Cooper 100-78 on Feb. 3 and did little to deter its national ranking on a trip to New York City on Feb. 13. Led by Cowels' 25 points and White's 22 points, the Royals took a bite out of the Big Apple and handily defeated Brooklyn's Thomas Jefferson 79-65 at the Nike Super 6 Showdown Invite at Fordham University in the Bronx to move to 19-0. Few query Hopkins reign as the best team in the state this season, but the Royals' overwhelming dominance had led to a popular historical question: Is this the greatest Minnesota high school basketball team of all time? The best of the best? Cooper coach Dave Johnson didn't hesitate to offer his opinion. "I haven't seen a high school team that good," said Johnson said. "They're just so deep and they're strong physically, too, and we had a tough time with that. They're just so tough to defend." Pulley said he'd put this year's Royals in his top-five of all-time, as did longtime DeLaSalle coach Dave Thorson. Both said they still haven't seen a better team than the Minneapolis North team of the mid-90s that won three straight state titles from 1995-97, and featured Khalid El-Amin, Ozzie Lockhart, Jabbar Washington, and Kerek Taylor. Novak, who has coached at Hopkins for 18 years, said the 2008-09 Royals are one of his best teams, but he had trouble labeling them the best team he's ever coached. "We've had some awfully good teams," Novak said. "Some people like to say this is the best team ever, but it's a different team. It's a fun style. People love watching us play because we get it and go, we press all over and we're putting pressure on. It's a high-energy, high-intensity game, which people love." Hopkins has had one of the most consistently competitive boys' basketball programs from the 1990s on, featuring the likes of current Toronto Raptors power forward Kris Humphries, Gophers shooting guard Blake Hoffarber and former Valparaiso guard Jared Nuness, just to name a few. Humphries, a McDonald's All-American for the Royals who went on to become the first freshman in Big Ten Conference history to lead the conference in scoring and rebounds with the Gophers, led Hopkins to its first state title in 49 years in 2002. Hoffarber led Hopkins to its latest back-to-back state titles in 2005-06 and gained national fame when he hit a game-tying three-pointer from his back in the 2005 state championship game, earning him an ESPY award for the year's top play in sports. All or nothing As dominant as the 2008-09 Royals have been, according to the players, their potential as a team hasn't come close to hitting its ceiling. "I think we have a long ways to go," Lockett said. "We're striving for perfection every game and we haven't hit that. It's very hard to, but we haven't gotten close to the best game we can play." When White, regarded by many as the most dominant player in the state, was dismissed from DeLaSalle High School for a violation of school rules and transferred to Hopkins, the Royals' team chemistry came into question. With so many talented players, would there be enough shots? So far, so good for the Royals, who also regularly implore the skills of juniors D.J. Peterson, Marvin Singleton and senior Moses Sundufu off the bench. "It's going really good right now," Williams said. "A lot of people doubted at the beginning of the season that we'd have team chemistry, but we're playing good team ball and passing the ball. Our record says it all." But perfection wouldn't be complete without a state championship, which serves as the Royals' primary motive. Only two players on the team have won a state title. Cowels was a freshman on the 2006 Hopkins' Class AAAA state title team, while White won a AAA title as a freshman with DeLaSalle in 2006. But with a starting lineup that resembles more of a college team than a high school team, only a state championship could immortalize the 2008-09 Royals as one of the greatest teams in Minnesota history. "It's definitely state championship or bust," Broghammer said. "Anything less is just going to be a major disappointment for all of us.