2016-17 Colt varsity basketball team
Karen Boehler
NMMI Sports Press
It could be a very interesting season for the Colts boys basketball team. New head coach Christian Stevens hails from Indiana, a hotbed of both high school and college basketball, and said he’ll be bringing tricks and tips from his home state to the Land of Enchantment.
“I’ve learned a lot playing the game and doing internships and watching other people take the lead as coaches, so I’m bringing a lot of playing experience and a lot of what I’ve learned from sitting on the bench and watching,” he said. “We will play Indiana basketball in New Mexico. That’s what’s going to happen this year.”
Stevens has 14 players on the varsity squad, ranging from seniors to freshmen.
“There’s talent at every level, no matter the age,” he said. “I decided to kind of break the tradition and just let the best players play varsity. I gave them the spot because I thought they were the best and they earned it, but the playing time has to be earned every day. So because they play varsity, because of the ages, how much they play is dependent on them. It’s all about buying into the program and what they bring to the table.”
Leading the way will be senior Fausto Baranzini, who’s just back from football.
“He brought leadership. He brought energy. He brought defense. Everything they were telling me about him, he brought that, and it was a little better than what I expected to see,” Stevens said. “So I’m excited to see him on the court. I watched him play football and he was getting several carries a game, so I knew he was going to be a good player for us.”
The rest of the seniors include team captains Fabian Martinez, Andres Aranda and Dillon Reynolds; David Elias; and Emilio Maldonado.
“I’m very excited because they’re all leaders – sergeants in the Corps and such – so that leadership that they carry outside of basketball they’ll bring it into our program, which they do every day,” the coach said.
Juniors on the varsity include Juan Reyna, Samid Ortega and Jesus Najar. Sophomores are Jesus Ley, Alejandro Lopez and Hector Reyna, with freshmen Charles Lewis and Nigel Grubbs rounding out the varsity roster.
Starting for the Colts will be Luy, Martinez, Reynolds, Baranzini and Aranda.
“I think those are my best five defenders and best five scorers when they play together,” Stevens said. “I think our point guard, Jesus Luy, is just an absolute playmaker and he is our best shooter on the team. So as long as we’re extending teams out and making them play our pace, these guys are my longest guys. They’re my most athletic. They’re my fastest. And I think that our bench is just as good, but I think the starting group is the ones who are going to put up the majority of points.”
But while you need scoring to win, that won’t be NMMI’s strength this year.
Defense and depth will.
“I think our biggest strength is we’re going to be able to out-run and out-play teams down the stretch,” the coach said. “I have depth, so when guys get tired I’ll be able to bring in a whole other group and our play won’t really go down. I think we’re very strong defensively. We have no worries as far as guarding teams and stretching them out and making them play at our pace.”
And, he said, there will be some surprises in what you see on the floor.
“I do have a defense that I won’t want to disclose,” he said. “I kind of want it to just show up, and I think it’s going to change the face of high school basketball. In terms of our pacing, the depth that we have, I think we’ll be able to run it all game and really never get out of our game play. No matter who we’re playing we’ll always play our basketball.”
On offense, Stevens said it’s not that the Colts can’t score — they can — It’s just the lack of being able to shoot. “We have a lot of scorers, we just lack the shooters this year, and late in the game that may hurt us, just because we don’t have 14 shooters. We may have 10 scorers, but we don’t have 14 shooters.”
So, following the adage that defense wins games, “If you’re checking out our games and the score is 1-0 at the end of the fourth quarter, that’s OK with us, because we’re really, really looking to force teams into turnovers and taking bad shots.”
Stevens and assistants Brandon Suazo and Stephen Vickers, who are both from New Mexico, all came in after school started, so had nothing to do with putting together this year’s schedule. Stevens knows the Colts are in one of the toughest districts in the state — new district foe Hope Christian has won four straight state titles, and seven of the last eight — but thinks NMMI can be competitive.
“I’ve looked at other schools. I’ve tried to look at just about every website and I don’t have any fear this year,” he said. “I do know we have good schools in Hope Christian, Goddard and even Texico. I know there are a couple of schools that we’re going to have to sit down and really grind it out and play our game and play their game, but the rest of the schedule, it kind of looks like we can win depending on if we show up. We have the talent. We have the depth. We have the guys. It’s just whether we’re going to play that day that determines if we’re going to win that day. I think if we lose a game it’s because we beat ourselves, not really because other teams have beat us.”
And with opening day Thursday at home vs. Loving, Stevens said the attitude he’s looking for is there. He just needs to see what happens on the floor.
“It does seem like this group has bought in,” he said. “Again, it’ll show up on paper once we start getting some games.”
