Experts try to find Chimacum sophomore's
place in high school basketball history


By SCOTT SANDSBERRY
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

The reviews are in for Steven Gray, the Chimacum sophomore who lit up the otherwise offensively dismal 2005 2A boys tournament with a 24.0 scoring average over four days in the SunDome.

And — notwithstanding his dead-legged final-day performance — they’re generally spectacular.

Chimacum's Steven Gray goes up for a shot over Medical Lake's Steven Wesley during their semifinal Friday.   JEFF HALLER/Yakima Herald-Republic

No, he’s not the best player to come along the 2A pike in years. There was some guy named Ridnour who played in this tournament, and not that long ago.

“You know, Luke was pretty hard to stop, too,” deadpanned Steilacoom coach Gary Wusterbarth about the Blaine star, later Oregon All-America and now Sonics starting point guard.

And, OK, so Gray isn’t always the most active defensive ballplayer on the court.

“I’ve never seen a kid play less defense in a high school game,” said one former prep coach who asked not to be named.

“Yeah, but he’s played wing in that 1-3-1 zone all year long, so he doesn’t have to play that much defense to start with,” said longtime tourney observer Bill Jordan of Port Orchard.

On the other hand, maybe Gray shouldn’t have to.

“If I had him, he wouldn’t have to play a lot of defense for me either,” laughed retired longtime Ephrata coach Marty O’Brien, who once had the state’s all-time leading scorer (Travis King) and won the 1993 title with him. “I’d want him on the floor, I don’t want him jerking around on defense and getting in foul trouble — not if he’s 60 percent of my offense.”

O’Brien and Jordan were among a gaggle of long-time tourneygoers, many of whom haven’t missed a 1A (and now 2A) tourney game in several decades.

And they like what they’ve seen in Gray.

“One of the best basketball players I’ve seen in a long time,” says Elmo Wise, a longtime AAU and prep coach in Southwest Washington who’s been attending state tourneys since 1959. “Everything he does on the court, he does the right way.”

“If you watch him after he takes a shot,” says Jim Caldwell of Port Townsend, “you wouldn’t know from his demeanor whether it went in or not. He never gets rattled.”

Former Lynden Christian coach Kent De Hoog said Gray “looked like (Sonics guard) Ray Allen, the way he goes up for that fallaway jumper and he’s just so smooth.”

Wise said the high school player Gray most reminds him off is Derric Croft, an all-stater from Lynden in the early 1990s who went on to play at Pepperdine and Western Washington. “But I think (Gray) is better at this age,” Wise said. “Croft wasn’t that good as a sophomore. (Ron) Deaton (of Naches Valley) was another one of that caliber — smooth, had the shot, and he was always calm, like this kid.”

The tournament veterans were unanimous in their feeling that Gray was the best player in the 2005 tournament. “If he doesn’t get the MVP,” O’Brien cracked, “we gotta get Dan Rather and ‘60 Minutes’ here to figure out how come.” (For the record, Gray was a unanimous pick for MVP.)

So, if he’s all that, does Gray rank with the greats? Would he, for example, rank up with the players who earned “all-time top 10” votes in a 2002 Herald-Republic poll of state prep experts?

Certainly not, say the veterans. Or, at least, not yet.

“Hey, look, we’re putting a guy in the high school hall of fame before he gets into his junior year here,” O’Brien said. “This guy is all-atmosphere in this tournament, but hey, this is the lowest-scoring tournament ever.”

“If every team scored 100 points today,” said Pete Meister of Port Townsend, who hasn’t missed a 1A (and now 2A) tournament since 1966, “it’ll still be the lowest-scoring tournament.”

“Yeah, (Gray) is MVP this year, but in 1987 he might not even make the all-state team,” Wise said. “That year you had Deaton, Matt Williams (both of Naches Valley), Todd Lautenbach (Lynden), Darren Morningstar (Stevenson).” Seven players from the 1987 tourney went on to play Division I college ball.

Wusterbarth, the Steilacoom coach, said Gray is similar to Ridnour “in terms of just the ability to have an impact on the game. He reads the floor well, makes all of his teammates better. He’s very smooth, and for his age, he’s just very mature. We’ve seen teams use double-teams against him, knock him around, try to take him out of his game — like teams used to do with Luke — and he just stays focused.”

Rumors are swirling that Gray’s family may move after the school year and that Gray could resurface next year at a 4A or 3A school — Bainbridge, perhaps, or even O’Dea.

Wherever he ends up, the tourney veterans say, he’ll keep getting better— because he’s smart (with a GPA in the 3.5 range) and has a great attitude.

“He has an awful lot of potential,” O’Brien said. “He’s going to listen, he’s going to learn. And he’s a leader. You can see that. He’s not a vocal leader, but his teammates follow him. And he’s not a showboat; he doesn’t point to the crowd when he makes a big basket.”

He just makes a whole lot of them.