Ridgefield has turned itself into a hoops power
RIDGEFIELD — As Ridgefield eased to another FCIAC victory Tuesday night, there was no series of hellacious fast break dunks. No frightening full-court press that rattled Trumbull into submission.
Save a few minor bumps, there was precision basketball by the No. 5 team in the state. There was relentlessly unselfish play on offense. There was dogged man-toman defense. This wasn’t 1950s basketball. Coach Andrew McClellan’s team plays at a decidedly uptempo 21st-century pace.
By halftime, Ridgefield led by 25 and 10 players who regularly fit into McClellan’s rotation had scored. By the end, it was 77-48 and no one among the 15 who played and 13 who scored had more than 11 points.
During his postgame locker room talk, McClellan brings up positive points of emphasis and the players respond by clapping twice. Will Magee was singled out for his play off the bench. Clap. Clap. McClellan praised his boys for not worrying about individual stats. Clap. Clap.
“I’ve coached in a lot of different places and you have kids who worry about that other (individual) stuff and it eats at what you’re doing,” McClellan said. “These guys know we have bigger things ahead.”
As far as regular-season matchups, it doesn’t get much bigger than a home game against No. 3 Windsor on Saturday. The No. 3 Ridgefield girls team faces No. 9 Simsbury afterward. No. 7 Ridgefield plays No. 2 Darien in hockey Saturday night. Big weekend in Tigerland.
For McClellan, it is a measuring stick of how his team matches up with the more glorified basketball
programs in the state. Now 8-0 after beating New Canaan 63-49 of Thursday, Ridgefield has won four of the past five FCIAC titles and is trying to become the first team since the league’s inception in 1961 to win four in a row.
Raised in upstate New York, McClellan would move to Chicago for 14 years with his wife, Holly, an attorney. He coached at La Grange and at St. Patrick’s on the northwest side of the city. He saw more than his share of opposing players go on to Division I college ball. He lived near Wrigley Field. He loved Chicago.
When the McClellans moved east, they settled in Ridgefield. Different place. Different pace. Andrew figured he’d sit out a year from coaching, but he quickly got the bug and emailed Ridgefield coach Carl Charles. He didn’t hear back for a long time. McClellan offered to scout for free. It must have been a really good scouting report. Charles made him an assistant. Three years later when Charles retired in 2013, McClellan was named the head coach.
“Through success, through grinding the last couple of years, we feel like we can compete with any of these top teams,” McClellan said. “We’re going to find out on Saturday where we are with that. When I got here, our kids didn’t think we could play with those teams. We built up this program and there is a different thought process than there used to be.
“We’d get in these big games with these big teams and we’d look over our shoulder worried that team was coming after us. My guys were intimidated off the bat. Hillhouse, Windsor … the whole thing is that it’s a basketball game and that’s all it is. I hope to get a win (Saturday). I don’t think most of my kids will be nervous or scared to play them. The more you can play against those teams, the better you are.”
McClellan says he called East Catholic, called Bristol Central about games. He has scrimmaged with Notre Dame-West Haven, Kolbe Cathedral, Immaculate and Fairfield Prep. Windsor coach Ken Smith posted on a group website he needed a game. Ridgefield originally had scheduled Norwich Free Academy, but a miscommunication changed that.
“All of a sudden we needed a game, too,” McClellan said. He called Smith and it was set for Dec. 18. That morning Windsor called to postpone because of the 150-mile round trip in inclement weather. The upside is Windsor’s Prince Samuels, who had a shoulder injury from football, and Ridgefield’s Matthew Knachel, who broke his arm in a fall basketball league, are healthy.
Ridgefield graduated seven seniors and all five starters from the 2019-20 team and lost only one game (New Canaan) last season. Three senior starters are gone from last year’s team and here is Ridgefield back again.
“I think our secret sauce is our player development,” McClellan said. “A lot of that happens in the offseason. We’re adamant about the weight room, adamant about skill development on their own and with their teammates. We don’t have a ton of AAU guys, although every year we do have more.”
Luke McGarrity has gone on to play Division III at Union and Amos Grey to Sarah Lawrence. Although Knachel has DIII basketball promise, McClellan said he is joining a family tradition of attending Maryland. You have to look back nearly a decade to Kurt Steidl, 2013 Connecticut Gatorade Player of the Year in Charles’ last season as coach, for a DI player (Vermont).
Sophomore Dylan Veillette, 6-foot-6 and powerfully built, has lots of upside. Windsor will be a big test for him.
When the CIAC went to five divisions in 2018, Ridgefield looked to opt out to a lower division. Along with 17 of 19 other schools, it was denied.
“I was like, ‘This is a huge compliment and not one, frankly, that I want,’ ” McClellan said. “Now it’s where we belong. We don’t look in the layup line like a lot of the other teams in Division I. We don’t get to recruit. We may not have all the measurables at the combine. What we have are hard-working kids.
“We shoot and pass the ball well. We work together on both sides of the floor. The kids are super tough. There’s a chemistry that kind of makes up for other stuff. We’re not trying to outjump anybody. We’re trying to put the ball in the basket a few more times than the other team.”
It was after a couple of FCIAC championships that McClellan looked at his team in the locker room and said, “We’re in Division I forever now.”
“That’s fine. It’s harder. You’re not going to win the state championship all the time, or maybe ever. But we can compete against those teams. I used to think we could beat any of those teams, but it’s impossible to win four in a row. Now I don’t feel that way as much.
“It will be hard for us because of the way we’re built. But it’s a doable thing now. The last two years I’m pretty sure we would have had some success. We didn’t get to play (because of COVID). Now, listen, if we were in Division II, in my opinion, we would probably have a state championship or two and a ton of success there. It is what it is.”
McClellan isn’t interested in receiving tournament byes for an outstanding record. He’d rather play a few games before running into the likes of East Catholic, Notre Dame-WH or Windsor. There are 22 teams in Division I, including Ridgefield, which is 19th in enrollment size. He’d like 32. In fact, he’d like to have two or three total divisions. Good luck convincing people on that.
“I do think there’s a bunch of things the CIAC could do to help our product out and help keep some of these players,” McClellan said.
His idea that coaches should meet before the state tournament like in Illinois to make seedings — instead of using wins and loss totals regardless of opponents — is a good one.
“For the sake of our product, we need to put the shot clock in now,” he said. “I totally disagree that we need two more years (the CIAC has delayed its implementation) to figure out a way to get it everywhere.
“We need to do something about (allowing) offseason coaching. We’re losing kids to prep schools because they can do all this stuff. And we have like the latest starting date in the whole country. States are playing Thanksgiving tournaments and we’re not even starting practice yet.”
One of the best basketball coaches in Connecticut was warming up like a hot Chicago radio talk show now.
“I love football, but because we play Thanksgiving, basketball shouldn’t suffer for it, right?” McClellan said. “A lot of people say the smaller schools don’t have enough guys. My pet peeve is we’re always catering to the least common denominator. I find it hard to believe they don’t have enough guys. I think the coaches in the trenches can figure something out. The football coaches have a voice. The basketball coaches, nobody feels like we have a voice.
“Right now, if four, five guys want to get in the gym, I can’t open it up and let them in. It’s illegal for me to be with them here. At the very least let me have four kids in the gym so they can work out.”