By Caleb Knudsen
While three of Healdsburg’s winter sports teams made it into the postseason play, one that did not was the boys varsity basketball team. But coach AJ Crosby still thinks it was a winning season, despite the 10-18 record, and puts them in position to have an even better season next year.
Though this was Crosby’s first year head-coaching a high school varsity team, it was by no means his first coaching experience. “Last year I was a JV coach at Rancho Cotate,” he said. “And for the past four-and-a-half years I’ve been a head coach for North Bay Basketball Academy for AAU seasons.”
The Amateur Athletic Union comes up a lot in Crosby’s reflections on the game of youth basketball. He said he’s seen that many of the best players in the high school also play AAU, which usually gives them a leg up in varsity competition. And the teams that don’t have AAU players suffer by comparison.
“The goal this year was obviously to win as many games as possible, but also to get the buy-in—to get these kids to play more basketball, not just during basketball season,” he said. Only a couple of players on this year’s roster had AAU experience, Crosby said, and it made a difference.
Still, he said, “I look at our talent compared to all the talent that I’ve gotten to coach, and knowing all the talent from the other teams I think we exceeded expectations.”
Ten wins is a benchmark of sorts, and even if only two of them were league games, they included the season’s final game, Feb. 8 at Elsie Allen. As usual, senior Thatcher Little and sophomore Ethan Overdorf, players at the beginning and end of their high school careers, led the team in the 53-42 Greyhound victory over the Lobos.
Crosby confided that when the NCS playoff season ended, the all-league players should include Little on first team, and Overdorf at least an honorable mention. Their statistics and play more than bear that out, as one or both leads the team in most categories: Thatcher’s 13.5 scoring average is first, followed by Overdorf’s 11.6 points per game.
The situation is reversed in rebounds, with Overdorf grabbing 7.7 per game and Little 6.0.
“Ethan’s big, Ethan’s huge,” said the coach of his 6-foot-4-inch center. “His development over the spring and summer I feel will surprise a lot of guys, based off of what he’ll do within AAU.”
But basketball is not a game played alone, or in pairs, but as a team. Other returning players include juniors Cooper Conrad and Becket Little—yes, a little brother—junior Vincenzo Loupy and the energetic sophomore, Frank Rea.
“I think Beckett Little and Cooper Conrad, both incoming seniors, have taken huge leaps and bounds compared to how the season started to the end of the season,” Crosby said. “And Frank I think is gonna take that next step next year.”
They’ll all return next year, ready to exceed expectations again.
