The Sutherland senior boys basketball team has seemingly found a winning mix.
With a team made up of a bunch of top-notch athletes, very few of whom call basketball their No. 1 game, the Sabres so far are firmly entrenched in the top 10 rankings for AAA schools in B.C. and are looking like true contenders for the provincial crown.
The team's success is a testament to the multi-sport prowess exhibited by this particular group of Grade 11 and 12 Sutherland boys, said head coach Brad Thornhill. The basketball team includes four players from the Sabres soccer team that won provincial AAA gold in the fall.
"We've got some great soccer guys, we've got some great rugby guys, our ultimate team is outstanding and there's a bunch of them on the team," he said. "We have an elite baseball pitcher playing for us. It's kind of a cool mix of a bunch of the guys from the neighbourhood."
Making it all work, however, is one hoops fanatic who claims ball above all. Grade 12 standout Graddy Zubaidi averages nearly 30 points a game while shooting more than 60 per cent from the floor and leading the team in rebounding.
"He's always been a very good athlete and a very good player but this year he's just taken it to a completely other level," said Thornhill, who has stuck with this group of players since they started playing junior ball in Grade 9. "Graddy has a chance of being a top two or three scorer all time at our school, while leading the team in rebounding and playing very unselfish basketball."
With an inside-outside game, Zubaidi is a very tough player to cover, said Thornhill. That was on display Thursday night as he helped lead the Sabres to a comfortable 74-50 win over a tough Windsor Dukes squad.
"He's now developed his game where he can hit the outside shot, he can drive to the hoop, he can shoot the pull-up jumper and he's excellent in the post," said Thornhill. "He's pretty much an impossible guy to guard. If you put a small, quick guy on him
like Windsor did, he goes inside and scores layups. If you put a big strong guy on him, he takes him outside and goes by him."
With Zubaidi as the centerpiece the team is filled out by a bunch of strong athletes. Grade 12 point guard Cole Keffer runs the show, a role he is very familiar with from his stints starring as a distributor in other sports. Keffer captained the Sutherland soccer team that won gold and is also an elite rugby player.
"He's basically the batteries of our team," said Thornhill. "He gets our engine running. He's been amazing for us."
Braeden Toikka plays a key role as well, taking his talents to the hardwood when he is not starring for the North Shore Twins in baseball. Last summer Toikka was dominant in leading the Junior Twins to their first provincial title, and he's transferred his pinpoint precision to the basketball court.
"He's our best threepoint shooter, best free throw shooter," said Thornhill. "He's also driving to the basket - he's sort of developed that allaround game. He's scoring a bunch for us."
The Sabres are also helped out by a brand new tier system that breaks the province into four groups instead of three. In recent years the Sabres have struggled against the biggest schools in B.C. but
now there is a new AAAA league that takes the top dogs into a new category, leaving the Sabres to scrap with opponents their own size.
"In the past we'd be with the big boys, the schools with a ton of athletes," said Thornhill. "We were playing against 6-9, 6-10 guys on all those teams. We'd have a hard time with those guys - Graddy is our biggest guy at 6-2. But at AAA we're playing schools that are our size and it's a great fit. I'm really glad they made it four tiers. Now we have a good, competitive chance of going to the B.C.'s and doing well."
The new system also shrunk the size of the North Shore leagues, leaving Sutherland to compete against just Windsor, Rockridge and Carson Graham for one provincial berth at AAA. The Sabres have beaten them all once already but it will be a season-long struggle to get that one B.C. berth. The teams will all meet again in regular season play and then go through a doubleknockout playoff.
"Beating one team once is easy," said Thornhill. "But beating the same team three or four times - everybody gets to know each other so well - it's a lot tougher."
If they do emerge from the North Shore, Thornhill thinks his Sabres, currently ranked No. 6 in the province, have as good a shot as any at winning the newly revamped AAA tier.
"This is just an amazing group of guys that all work hard, they all support each other, they're all totally coachable and totally willing to share together," he said. "It's as true of a team as I've ever seen."
