Bouncing back

     By Sean DeFrank
     View staff writer
      It was a tale of two seasons for the Green Valley High School boys' basketball team.
      The year began inauspiciously as coach Larry Thomas was relieved of his coaching duties on Dec. 7 after allegedly mishandling athletics department funds, and replaced on an interim basis by Lee Koelliker, the school's assistant principal.
      The highly-touted Gators, who earned a trip to the state tournament in 1998, struggled through the turmoil and limped to a 3-5 Sunrise Division record during the season's first half, while cross-town rival Basic was the early surprise with a 6-2 division mark.
      The two teams reversed roles in the second half of the season as Green Valley rolled off five consecutive victories, including a 75-73 overtime thriller over eventual Sunrise champion Rancho that allowed the Gators to catch the Wolves, who lost five of their next six contests.
      The two teams were tied for the final playoff berth at 8-7 heading into the season's final regular season games on Feb. 11, with Basic earning the spot if it won at Rancho, while Green Valley hosted Chaparral, the Sunrise's second seed.
      While the Wolves were getting whipped 78-46 by the Rams, thus eliminating Basic from zone consideration, the Gators used a strong first half to conquer the Cowboys 72-63 and secure their postseason spot. Koelliker, who coached at Clark from 1990-93, called the Green Valley squad the hardest working group he's ever had.
      "I think any time a team goes to the zone tournament it's a great accomplishment," he said. "I think we could have finished higher. We had some games there that we kinda gave away. É That was because I just came on board and the kids weren't really sure about me. But I'm happy to be where we are."
      The Gators jumped out to a 46-24 halftime lead over Chaparral, as seniors Cornell Williams and Jeff Platt led the Green Valley attack with 13 and 10 first-half points, respectively.
      Both players paid homage to Koelliker for the team's turnaround.
      "At first, we were kinda sceptical about coach Koelliker being the coach because we didn't know that much about him," Williams said. "To come in after the other coach had been fired, take over the program, turn the program around, change everything up, change his style of play and put it into our program, I give him a lot of credit."
      Said Platt: "It's one thing for him to step in with a bunch of kids he doesn't know. But to turn it into a winning season and make it to the zone playoffs, I love him."
      Koelliker, who guided the Chargers to the 1993 state title, said the Green Valley players responded well to his coaching techniques, which are significantly different than those employed by Thomas.
      "It wasn't really fine-tuning," Koelliker said. "It was kinda changing everything around. É So there was a lot of adjustments. That first half of the season I don't really look at because that's when all the adjustments were taking place."
      Even with the strong finish, the Gators still finished the season with an overall record of 10-12, indicative of their early-season struggles. However, earning a spot in the zone tournament erased many of those bad memories for Williams, who finished with 16 points against Chaparral after sitting down most of the second half with four personal fouls.
      "It's big for us," Williams said. "We had a lot of setbacks during the beginning of the season. During the second half of the season, we just tried to come out and play as hard as we can. Our goal was just to make it to zone. To even be there is pretty good for us."
      Platt, who scored 17 points against the Cowboys before fouling out, said it was up to the seniors on the squad to try and salvage something of their final high school season.
      "That was like the main concern for us," Platt said. "You don't want your last year to be regular season, then go home. You want to go to the state tournament. And not making zone, you have no chance to go to state. So you have to do something and do it quick."
      But while the Gators' turnaround may not have been quick in its arrival, it did come at just the right time.
      "We came into the season with real high expectations," Platt said. "We thought we were just going to come in and roll through everybody. We came in kind of big-headed. And with all the coaching changes and distractions, we got down and we got beat by some teams that weren't as good as us. We started peaking at the end of the season É and we're doing all right now."