The varsity boys basketball team won its first CCS title in decades, and it is because of the hard work of the coaches and players over the last 15-20 years, Athletic Director and varsity boys basketball head coach Champ Wrencher said.
Winning the CCS championship felt great, especially with his teammates and coaches he’s been with for many years, senior Dylan Nguyen said.
“That was the goal before the season; I had that on my calendar, to win CCS,” Nguyen said. “It was the first time (winning CCS) in 29 years, since 1997, so to be a part of history feels really good.”
Nguyen believed that the team had a shot at winning CCS since pre-season, and he knew it was going to happen, Nguyen said.
“I’ve always respected my opponent and whoever we played,” Nguyen said. “But, I’ve always believed that we were the best team in every game we played.”
Team chemistry is very important in basketball, and the whole team felt really connected the whole season, Nguyen said. The players started hanging out together off the court, too, so that just made things better, he added.
“If I were to describe the team, I’d say we have a lot of team chemistry,” Nguyen said. “I think that’s what makes our team so special. That’s why we’ve had our success this year that builds, that comes from hard practices, playing with each other.”
Going into this season, Wrencher had no idea that team boys were going to come this far, Wrencher said.
“I was thinking we’d be a pretty solid team – top 10 Division 1 (seed, maybe top 3 league finish. I had no idea it (CCS) would happen.”
Defense is what wins games and was very important in the boys’ championship run, he said.
“Defense — especially when we can hold teams under 50 points — that’s a mark of a good defensive team,” Wrencher said. “We got a lot of games like that, but we were consistently holding people to under 50 points. And as a team, we’re averaging well over 67 points a game. So, when you combine those two things, that’s a good indication that you know you’re playing really good defense and you generate an easy points on offense. So yeah, it’s definitely the defense, man. It’s relentless. Guys have really good competitive spirit, so they don’t take plays off. They play every single possession with the most effort that they can bring.”
The team was bigger last year, and they lost a lot of important players, Wrencher said.
“We lost a lot of offense, at least 3 people that scored 20 points and one person that was all Bay Area and finished second in the MVP voting for league,” he said. “We had two other players that had been All-League performers. So four starters left. We pretty much had a new team, and most of the guys this year did not play last year.”
senior Dylan Nguyen, who won the league MVP, stepped up and led the team,, Wrencher said.
Nguyen is “not a vocal guy, just a good leader by example, “Wrencher said. “He was always on time. He’s always one of the last ones to leave the gym. He loves to play. He’s always playing one-on-one against someone after practice. He showed up to all the optional activities that we have going on. Him leading by example and being there was pretty big for us.”
The team’s hard work starting from pre-season made the goal of winning CCS possible, junior Pranavram Krishnan said.
“We got a lot of recognition, and that was our main goal,” Krishnan said. “The team’s focus on conditioning, helped them perform better, he said.
We would probably do 150 jump ropes, and then he (Coach Wrencher) would get us some layup lines or some shooting drills, maybe partner shooting drills,” Krishnan said. “We would run plays for a little bit, then we would probably scrimmage, and then we might hit the weight room.”
The game against San Ramon Valley made Krishnan realise that the team had a chance of winning the CCS championship, he said.
“San Ramon Valley was a game on our schedule that we thought was going to be one of the hardest games of the season,” he said. “We pulled through, and we worked as a team, and we saw what we could do as a team, and then we knew eventually that would correlate to us winning.”
The crowds also had a huge impact on the team’s performance at home and away games, Wrencher said.
“It made everything comfortable,” he said. “It made it (away games) seem like a home game, especially at CCS, when so many people from Milpitas were there – familiar faces, chants from the crowd, and that’s big support. That’s been a big thing. The last three years, the crowds we’ve had at the games have been amazing. And it was great to see everybody come to a CCS game and make it a MHS home game.
