The St. Michaels University School Blue Jags begin the 2023-24 Senior Boys basketball season with a deep roster that head coach Reagan Daly believes includes “a lot of pieces” necessary to be very competitive on the BC 2A scene.
How well those pieces come together will be the key for the Blue Jags, who are ranked No. 7 in the first provincial 2A poll. SMUS returns four players, including two starters, from last season’s Senior team and welcomes six players from the Blue Jags Junior squad that captured the Lower Island and Island championships last year.
“I really think it’s one of the deeper groups I’ve ever coached at the school,” Daly says. “We should be able to play tons of guys. I think we’ll shoot the ball collectively quite well and we’re pretty balanced. We should be good defensively. I think we have a lot of pieces.”
The team has good size – 6-6 Grade 11 post Elliot Mairet has the potential to be dominant inside – and returning guard-forward Kian Colgate, at 6-3, brings a strong physical presence as does newcomer Lincoln Faulkner, another 6-3 swingman with a physical game. The Blue Jags boast a crafty returning swingman in Damon Bains (6-1) while fellow Senior Taiga Parmar (6-0) brings zone-busting three-point capacity. Rounding out the seniors in the lineup are 6-3 backup centre Nicholas Lee, who has shown considerable poise for a Grade 12 who never played organized basketball before tryouts, and ultra-athletic guard Leupold Wang (6-0), who is just back on the court this week following a foot injury.
Besides Mairet, the Blue Jags figure to get good production from a group of Grade 11 guards in Davis Hardy (6-3), Jack Driscoll (6-1), Will Woods (5-10), Will Porter (5-10) and Zaki Pelyhe (5-7) who have so far shown good poise and ability to both move the ball and score at the Senior level.
Daly returns as Senior head coach for the first time since 2011-12, replacing the retiring Ian Hyde-Lay. He is assisted on the bench by Mark Yorath and Steve Bates. They see the Blue Jags as a team capable of pressing and trapping effectively while getting scoring from a lot of different places.
Daly knows getting off the Island and to the Langley Events Centre in March will not be easy as the Island 2A field looks like it has a lot of parity, including defending Island champion John Barsby (BC No. 3), Lambrick Park (BC No. 6) and Brentwood College (HM) all in the mix along with others. “The Island looks pretty competitive,” he says. “You’re going to have to beat somebody pretty good to go to the BCs.”
The BC 2A scene is also deep and competitive, led by the defending provincial champion King George Dragons (No. 1), Pacific Academy (No. 2) and Collingwood (No. 4).
“I just think the preseason rankings are never going to be a huge indicator of where you’re going to end up,” Daly says. “It’s really hard to say right now where we fit in. I expect we will be competitive with the top teams.”
The Blue Jags got their first taste of some top competition last week, when they went 1-3 in the Select 16 portion of the Tsumura Basketball Invitational at the Langley Events Centre. SMUS saved its best performance for its last game of that event, storming back from an 11-point first-half deficit to roll to a 77-52 win over Chilliwack’s 4A GW Graham Grizzlies.
The Blue Jags play their first local games with a pair of Lower Island 2A League contests this Tuesday at Glenlyon-Norfolk School and Wednesday at home against St. Andrew’s. Both games tip-off at 7:30 pm.
SMUS will challenge itself at another top-notch event this coming weekend, playing in the Gary Taylor Invitational at Oak Bay. The Blue Jags open the tournament against Burnaby’s St. Thomas More Knights (ranked No. 9 in 3A), a team that finished second in the same TBI Select 16 tournament that SMUS played in last week. That game goes Thursday at 12:45 pm.
The Gary Taylor field features four of the Top 10 4A teams in BC., including the No. 1-ranked host Bays, No. 5 Spectrum, No. 7 Vancouver College and No. 9 Fleetwood Park, as well as Lambrick Park, Heritage Woods, Yale and Belmont.
SMUS will also compete in the talent-laden UVic Vikes Alumni Invitational December 28-30 at CARSA in a field that includes Oak Bay, Tamanawis (4A No. 2), Dover Bay (3A No. 5), Spectrum, Lambrick Park, Kelowna, Handsworth, Shorewood High School from Washington State and Saratoga High School from San Jose, California.
The Blue Jags’ final tournament of the season will be the Brentwood College Countdown to Playoffs event January 25-27. The Island 2A tournament is also scheduled for Brentwood, February 22-24.
