The Hour Has Come

Which team would you have counted on? One has a 6'7" senior center who's led the league in blocks two years running. He runs the court, deftly tipping in rebounds from all angles, and can score with his back to the basket or faced up. That team also touts three junior guards who got time as freshmen and overcame their growing pains as sophomore starters: They and another sophomore guard can defend, drive and shoot. Add a six-foot-four guy who can jump out of the gym and two brothers with athleticism and length - and that's a squad. Would you take that team, or this team: A six-foot-eight unproven freshman, two tall sophomores with perimeter potential, and only two of the four standout guards back from last season, now seniors? Now that his 14-year career in the City League has come full circle, Wichita Heights coach Joe Auer could talk all day about timing. About patience. About having the right mix of players. Fact is, Wichita Heights won its second state basketball title in school history with that latter team, less impressive on paper before closer examination. Auer had been close before, so at season's beginning it was unclear whether his Falcons' run to the Class 6A state semifinals in 2007-8 was a building block for for 2008-9. Two guards had decided not to return to the team; the two brothers had transferred. The leaper had graduated, as had the talented big man, Kelton Marshall, first-team all-city last season. The loss of Marshall would have seemed a back-breaker, had it not been for the arrival of that tall freshman and and the return of steady senior guard play. "We had to start all over basically," Dorrian Roberts, one of those guards, said going into this March's playoffs. "We've got a lot more chemistry [this season] because we're all friends. When we get out on the court, we're used to everybody." "We've always had chemistry for all our years [at Heights]," added Austin Bahner, the other Heights guard who's been central to the Falcons' game the past three seasons. "This year is just a little bit different because all of us are friends. We all get along." Winning teams have players who find the open man, and friends don't hesitate to pass the ball to one another. Roberts' and Bahner's leadership, friendship and unselfish play was never more evident than in the closing minute of Heights' Class 6A state semifinal win over Shawnee Mission Northwest. Roberts chased down an outlet baseball pass in the far corner of the frontcourt, toeing the baseline, before somehow corralling the ball and switching directions up the baseline to drive to the hoop. Having drawn SM Northwest's central defender, Roberts found Bahner - running the court with his buddy and teammate - streaking down the middle of the lane for a finger roll. It was championship basketball. Perry Ellis, now the proven six-foot-eight incoming sophomore, never had to put Heights on his back this season, though he did put the team over the top, making them capable of a one-loss season. Ellis won't have to carry the team next season, either, though he will be available to do so when asked. When he stepped out to the corner and drained a three-pointer off the catch against SM Northwest in one fluid motion, one thought came to mind: There's nothing this freshman couldn't do at the high school level. Bang underneath? Did it all season. Lead the fastbreak? Always looked for the outlet before putting it on the floor himself. Catch and face? With a spin move off the up-fake and hard dribble, if you need it. After a 32-year title drought at Heights, the dam has broken. The Class 6A champs, Ellis and Auer have begun a run of four years together. After making the state finals just three times since the legendary undefeated 1977 Falcons, Heights has the best young talent in the City League. Auer's one previous appearance at Heights in the state final in 1998, a 22-point loss to Olathe East, is a distant memory. An assistant at Heights beginning in 1989, Auer's program is finally No. 1 after 20 seasons of toil. His teams have never been slouches: Auer had won a single title (2000) and compiled five runner-up finishes in the City League through the 2007-8 season. Heights annually placed in the upper half of the league. Going into this season, the coach held a 162-123 career record. But, certainly, this season swatted the monkey from his back. Heights was the first team to go undefeated in the City League since Steve Eck's South High Titans in the 1994-95 season. (Heights even one-upped that squad - South didn't win state that year.) Also, the only blemish between Auer's Falcons this season and the '77 Heights team featuring future NBAers Darnell Valentine and Antoine Carr was a mid-season tourney loss to Hutchinson. (Hutch did end each half with buzzer-beaters to win that game.) Lastly, Heights completed the dream season by beating the defending champs, Southeast, for the third time this season. When, at any level, does any team beat the defending champ three times in one season? By ousting the Buffs, Heights continues the City League's legacy in the state of Kansas, one for which Southeast has born the standard for the past decade. Southeast has been on a tear under coach Carl Taylor: In five finals appearances since 1999, Southeast and Taylor have three state titles. Overall, a team from the City League has won 23 of the last 39 top-classification state titles, dating back to the 1970-71 season. But, now, the hour has come for Heights. How many more will they add to the City League streak? With Dreamius Smith, who made 9 of 15 field goals in Heights' state semifinal win over SM Northwest, Ellis, and sophomores Evan Wessel and Terrence Moore returning, Auer is staring at a new City League dynasty. As Heights begins its quest for a series of titles, Wichita Collegiate wonders how close it could have been to history. Now state champs in 2007 and 2009, the Spartan boys were actually favored in 2008, as well. That season, however, ended early at sub-state. Still, coach Mitch Feigel's program is sitting on two state titles in three seasons - with the bulk of this season's lineup returning. Senior leaders Andrew Hourani, Gideon Massey and Michael McGuire graduate, but the junior class was loaded this season with Blake Jablonski, Tre Bailey, Brett LeMaster, Ty Fiegel and Bryce Cornejo. Fiegel, impossible to miss on the Collegiate sideline as he pleads with his team to compete, entered the Wichita basketball ranks the same year as Auer, taking over the Spartan program for the 1989-90 season. Two years after its first taste of a state basketball final in 1988, Collegiate hired Fiegel with the charge to raise the grade of the school's athletic experience. The school's athletic programs struggled to maintain consistent excellence, as students with promising athletic futures frequently transferred after eighth grade to compete at the highest levels. "I didn't even know what a private school was," Fiegel told me the first time I interviewed him, prior to the 2007-8 season. "I had played TMP (Thomas More Prep) growing up, but that's about all I knew." The Pratt native attended his hometown junior college before obtaining his teaching degree at Pittsburg State, where he spent as much time in the gymnasium playing intramural ball as in the library. After coaching four seasons at small schools in Missouri and Kansas, Fiegel was introduced to the private school experience at Collegiate - and asked to build on to it. Four Class 3A state titles later, the standard at Collegiate has never been higher. Simultaneously, the program's lack of star power over the past three seasons has been glaring, though each class during the recent streak has boasted better and better overall talent. To dispell the murmurs of preps conspiracy theorists who say Collegiate hoops unfairly benefits from its status as a private school, look at the program's record before Fiegel arrived: One state final appearance, and that came when Collegiate was still in Class 2A. None of what the program has accomplished over the years has been automatic or anything less than the result of hard work and devotion. "All schools have opportunities for excellence," Fiegel told me in that interview over a year ago. "The community has to want it. "We're going to do everything in our power - lifting, individual workouts, open gyms - to ensure success. We will not suffer from a lack of plan or effort." As was evident this season. Fiegel's players never fail to respond to him - they have bought in, which is every coach's dream. Collegiate's full-court pressure defense after made baskets was one of the state's most effective conscious basketball strategies in 2008-9. And with a bevy of seniors returning next season, a class which has lost only one game as starters since seventh grade, the Spartans will certainly hound the competition for another year.