Schools
One-On-One with Castro Valley High Boys Basketball Coach
Nick Jones looks back at a memorable season and looks forward to this year's team.
After scouting a future opponent, Nick Jones was on his cell phone answering a reporter’s question when the call was lost. After the reporter called back, the boys basketball coach apologized, saying his phone’s battery was low and asked to resume the interview the next morning.
Unlike the coach’s mobile, the Castro Valley High basketball team has hardly ever run low on energy in Jones’ five years as coach. and won their
Graduated are four starters from that 30-2 team, but the Trojans remain energized.
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“We play full-court, man-to-man and we like to get out and run,” Jones said. “We man (man-to-man), press, zone press and trap. We like to mix it up.”
Before he came to Castro Valley, Jones was junior varsity coach at Monte Vista High in Danville. Mark Appel, a top baseball pitcher at Stanford who could be among the top five picked in next June’s major league draft, credited among others his JV basketball coach for a key part of his development.
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“Nick Jones … is the fiercest competitor I have ever known, and he taught me that competing is much more about desire than just playing well,” Appel told a reporter for MaxPreps in 2009.
So, you can surmise the effort and desire will be there this season for the Trojans, who were off to a 4-1 start heading into a game Tuesday night with Deer Valley High. Their loss came Thursday in the Hayward Area Athletic League opener, 49-48, at Bishop O’Dowd High on a buzzer-beater by Joshua Crum.
Jones speaks highly of the one starter returning from the 2010-11 team, senior point guard Dawson Johnson.
“He’s quick, fast and brings a lot of energy, and he has a good feel for the game. He’s a tough little kid,” the Castro Valley coach said of his 5-foot-7 floor leader. “Although he didn’t score much (last year), he was kind of the glue who held the team together.”
Stepping into the breach are four new starters and four more off the bench.
“Dawson is really the only guy we have back,” Jones said. “Everybody else is basically brand new. We’re young and inexperienced. We just focus on playing hard and kind of getting better every day.”
The team’s goals change from year to year, Jones said, adding, “Last year we knew what we had and we had big goals.”
Starting alongside Johnson this season in a three-guard, two-forward lineup are guard Jalen McFerren, forward Sean Benson, forward Andrew Garcia and guard Demareyeh Lane.
McFerren is a 150-pound, 5-9 sophomore; Benson a 6-3, 180-pound senior; Garcia a 6-3 sophomore forward; and Lane, a stocky, 5-11 sophomore who has been a defensive stopper. Only Benson played on the varsity last season.
Coming off the bench have been Derrick Clayton, a 6-5 sophomore forward, senior 6-2 wing (guard) Kyler Knox, 6-3 junior Jake Mitchell and 5-9 junior wing Jamoni Barber.
Last year’s season will be long treasured by Jones and Castro Valley High.
“We were 30-2, we went undefeated in league, we won the North Coast Section title,” Jones recalled. “Yeah, it was a pretty amazing season.”
Castro Valley beat De La Salle 60-42 to win the NCS crown but bowed 49-42 to the Spartans in a rematch at the NorCal title game, falling just short of a berth in the state championship game.
The departures from that team left some huge holes.
Roderick Bobbitt was an All-State performer, East Bay MVP of a group of newspapers and the HAAL player of the year. The 6-foot-2 guard, who has gone on to perennial national junior college power Indian Hills in Iowa, averaged 19.8 points, 4.5 assists and 4.5 rebounds for the Trojans last year.
Juan Anderson, a versatile 6-7 forward, received a full basketball scholarship to Marquette, where he is playing as a true freshman.
Chris Read, an athletic 6-foot-4, two-time All-HAAL standout, is at Ohlone Community College in Fremont. Alex Foster, who also made key contributions, also graduated.
That landmark season may serve as a model for Castro Valley teams for many years to come.