Robinson powers Las Lomas
It was a scene straight out of a classic coming-of-age movie. Nathan Robinson, a quiet, bashful sort, arrived at Walnut Creek Intermediate School as the new kid on campus.
Not knowing what to say or do, he took to the playground to display his first love and language — basketball. Established Walnut Creek kids Devin Payne and Jason Holman watched intently. They spoke the language.
“He went through his legs with the ball and in for a layup,” Payne said. “Super smooth.” Said Holman: “He was in.” So began the legend of the 2017-18 Northern California championship Las Lomas Walnut Creek Knights.
Hinged largely around Robinson’s circuitous journey, the Knights (31-3) have put together the greatest season in school history.
Las Lomas figures to bring the biggest and loudest following from the Bay Area to Golden 1 Arena in Sacramento on Friday, when it takes on 2015-16 national champion Chino Hills (25-11) in the CIF State Division 1 title game at 8 p.m.
“We’ve made a lot of great memories this season that will last forever,” Robinson said.
The 6-foot-4, 186-pound guard averages a team best 20 points per game and always guards the opponent’s best player. He made fast friends with Payne and Holman in the sixth grade, and a year later, with Robert Prince.
The quartet dominated at Walnut Creek Intermediate, which went undefeated over two seasons and won every local championship tournament and competition.
“There were little local legends,” Las Lomas coach Brian Dietschy said.
Like one star in every pop band, Robinson left the group largely because he went to a Bruce-Mahoney basketball game at USF in the eighth grade. He witnessed 5,000 fans — evenly divided — go berserk and wanted to be a part of it.
His dad Mark Robinson, who played for Bobby Knight at Indiana, knew people at Sacred Heart Cathedral, and thus Robinson left suburbia to make the long trip to school.
“Get up at 4:30, catch BART, take some buses, go to school, practice late, get home at 10,” Robinson said. “It was tough, but I wanted to do it.”
Three years he attended SHC, never earning All-West Catholic Athletic League honors, and after his junior season, he decided the wear and tear of commuting had taken its toll. He enrolled at his neighborhood school in Walnut Creek, blocks from his house.
“I have nothing but good things to say about the Sacred Heart Cathedral community,” he said. “They all respected my decision. Same with my Walnut Creek friends when I left.”
Though the Knights, coming off a 22-win season, already had good chemistry and talent heading into the 2017-18 campaign, they could always use a little more. They knew Robinson wouldn’t mess up a good thing. He enrolled last spring but went back to England, where he was born (his dad played professionally there), for the summer, and made the Great Britain under-18 national team.
“It sort of delayed our reconnection, but I feel like it helped me get a lot better,” Robinson said.
The Knights hit the ground running when he returned, beating then-WCAL favorite St. Ignatius 60-43 in the opener of the NorCal Tip-Off Classic.
That kicked off a 15-game win streak to start the season. Backto-back defeats woke up the Knights, who then won 12 straight before a 65-58 to Bishop O’Dowd-Oakland in the North Coast Section Division 2 finals.
“This team does a lot of great things, but I really like how they always bounce back,” Dietschy said.
The Knights then won four NorCal Division 1 games against the region’s elite: Franklin-Elk Grove (65-59), Dublin (69-66), Mitty (84-70) and Palo Alto (44-41).
“(Prince) runs the show, (Holman) is the straight shooter, (Payne) does it all, and I try to fill in the rest,” Robinson said.
They’ll need to fill it up against Chino Hills, which lost junior All-American LaMelo Ball before the season — he’s playing professionally in Lithuania — but feature 6-foot-9 junior Onyeka Okongwu, 6-3 senior guard Ofure Ojadughele and 6-5 senior Andre Ball.
“It sure feels like we’re the underdogs,” Payne said. “But at the same time we know we can win this game.”