Cascades welcome new prospects
UFV snares 4 of top 20 high-school boys, who showcase their talents Saturday at UBC
Fraser Valley Cascades’ head coach Barnaby Craddock can take a quick, figurative peek over his shoulder and remember when players like Joel Friesen, Kyle Grewal, Sam Freeman and Jasper Moedt were wide-eyed youngsters in the CIS, making that always-difficult transition from high school to the highest level of university basketball in Canada.
Those four are not only an experienced group these days, but all return from a UFV team which took its biggest steps yet as a program, falling to eventual national champion Carleton in the semifinals at the CIS Final 8 tournament last month.
So now, with the Cascades established as one of the top men’s programs in the country, it’s time to bring in the next big wave of talent to the Abbotsford school.
“I think this is a fantastic crop of high school players coming out this year. I think there are 20 kids with CIS potential coming out of our high school system and we’re fortunate to be getting four of them out of the Fraser Valley.”
— UFV coach Barnaby Craddock
On Saturday, four of those incoming recruits will be on display as UBC’S War Memorial Gymnasium plays host to the annual B.C. High School All-star games. The girls game opens the day at 1:30 p.m., followed by the boys game at 3 p.m.
“I think our program has come into a senior-laden moment and that is why we wanted to bring in a big high school recruiting class that is the future of the program,” explained Craddock, who has stalwarts Freeman, Grewal and James York for another season, and Friesen and Moedt for another two. “I think this is a fantastic crop of high school players coming out this year. I think there are 20 kids with CIS potential coming out of our high school system and we’re fortunate to be getting four of them out of the Fraser Valley.”
Craddock, of course, is talking about the geographic region in which he has harvested his latest class. But it’s saying as much about their individual qualities that the Fraser Valley-area kids are such a good fit for the UFV program.
Among the foursome is 6-foot-5 forward Luke Morris, the son of former Canadian national team member Pete Morris, who led Double A Mission to back-to-back appearances in the B.C. final, including the title this past March in Kamloops.
“He is a fantastic winner,” said Craddock. “He has great bloodlines. We’re trying to figure out if he is a big guard or a small post. But he is just a basketball player overall, and a clutch one. He performs in big games.”
Craddock is also bringing in 6-foot3 guard Max Neumann, who played point guard this past season for the Maple Ridge Ramblers under noted head coach Ken Dockendorf.
“From all reports he has been one of the best players all year at [Basketball B.C.’S] Centre For Performance,” Craddock said of the elite training group which draws many of the province’s top players. “And we all know Doc is a Hall of Fame coach. [Max] might have been a little bit under the radar but he is a big recruit for our program.”
Craddock also inked two players from the rising Surrey program at Tamanawis secondary in 6-foot-5 forward Rav Dhaliwal and 6-foot-4 point guard Manny Dulay, and both are coming off impressive performances that saw them lead the Wildcats into the B.C. Triple A tournament.
“We needed to get some young bigs in here and he fits the bill,” says Craddock of dhaliwal, who couldn’t ask for a better mentor on life in the CIS front court than the tough and explosive Grewal. “He was a real inside presence for tamanawis and he is going to come in here and play some minutes immediately. We have to get his feet wet and we expect him to do some big things down the road for us.”
And Dulay might be one of the top five most exciting players to emerge from B.C.’S Class of 2012. Not only is he a shooter and a fearless driver, but an exceptional passer who seems to answer the bell when the stakes are highest.
“He is one of those guys,” explains Craddock, “where as a coach, you think you see the floor, but you end up saying ‘Wow, I didn’t see that one.’ He has great floor vision.”
Saturday’s two contests, in fact, will feature so many future Cis-and Ccaa-level players that there’s a good chance in two to three seasons, they will be the key performers helping their schools compete for national championships.
But there’s a lot of work to do between now and then.
“It’s about maturing,” Craddock says of his incoming freshmen. “They are 17-year-olds and [CIS] is a league of 20-to-24 year-olds. So it’s a matter of putting in the hard work, getting in the weight room, and just maturing.
“I am just excited about the mentorship that these guys are going to get here from the guys that have helped us build this program and taken it to the national semifinals. It’s a great way for them to learn how we do things here.”
Tickets for Saturday’s doubleheader: $10 for adults, $3 for students and seniors, free for seven and under.