No. 1 Grey Ghosts not an apparition
Lord Byng team and its 6-foot-8 star are the early favourites in the triple-A ranks
The Lord Byng Grey Ghosts went to bed Wednesday evening with the news their team had ascended to the No. 1 ranking in B.C. senior boys triple-A basketball.
Yes, the new season is all of two weeks old, and yes, the march to March Madness has barely begun.
Yet the Lord Byng program rebuild under head coach Kevin Sandher has been significant enough that they evoke memories of the last great group of Grey Ghosts.
This spring will mark 30 years since the last time the Vancouver public school made a deep run through the field at the B.C. championships.
In 1987, a team that boasted the likes of UBC Thunderbirds-to-be Jason Leslie and Chris Frye advanced all the way to the tournament’s Final Four before being bounced by a team that has been called, due to its two-year stretch of dominance, the greatest high school team ever fielded in this province’s history.
“We lost to the first of the great Richmond Colts teams,” says Erik Rolfsen, a forward on that 1987 Lord Byng team and now The Province’s senior online news editor. “Our highest ranking that season was No. 3 and that is where we ended up finishing that season. I’ve started to take a bigger interest again, and I know I’ll be in the gym this year to watch some games.”
What all Grey Ghost alums will see is a team led by its 6-foot-8 star, B.C. under-17 select standout forward Nathan Bromige, a big man with the ability to not only play all five positions on the floor, but to guard them as well.
“I knew from the first day that with our size, we were always going to be competitive,” says Sandher, 36, who since arriving at Byng has shepherded this current senior class since they were ninth graders back in 2013-14. “We would be able to protect the rim. The one thing that we really needed to do was to improve our guard play, and we have done that.”
The Grey Ghosts played Thursday at the Langley Events Centre in the opening round of the Tsumura Basketball Invitational, scoring a dominant 71-34 win over the Port Moody Blues.
Bromige hit a pair of early threes and just generally created a presence the rest of his talented teammates were able to play off of. Sixfoot senior forward Peter Gibbons not only dominated the offensive glass but scored a game-high 20 points.
Ghosts point guard Peter Chae was also impressive with his 11 points and the deep backcourt rotation that included Simon Cutler and Dexter MacDonald shone as Lord Byng hit nine treys en route to a 48-18 halftime lead.
Port Moody’s talented senior point guard Kaito Cunningham scored a team-high 15 points.
Bromige is one of B.C.’s very best and he’s coming off a Grade 11 campaign in which he averaged 21 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists per game.
“The one thing that has changed so much from when I played is that a player like Nathan, at six-eight, is now bringing it up the floor,” says Sandher, whose team finished fifth in B.C. last season with no seniors on the roster. “He’s worked hard on his shot, and (defensively) on the perimeter, he can switch on guards and stay with them.”
Bromige has also benefited from having the 6-foot-7 Declan Herbertson on the floor with him, as well as Gibbons.
Sill, the No. 1 ranking and everything that goes with establishing a new generation of tradition at the school is new territory for the Grey Ghosts’ Class of 2017.
“In most established programs, the younger players coming up have someone to look up to,” Sandher says. “But not Nathan’s group. It has just been them all the way. But now the younger kids are looking up to them.” And seeing that No. 1 ranking. “It’s good for the kids to see that because I don’t think it’s happened for a very long time,” Sandher says. “As a coach, maybe being No. 1 in the first week of December is not where you want to be, but for the program it’s great. For those kids who are in grades six or seven to see that we are No. 1 is nice.”
Lord Byng won its only B.C. senior title in 1958, in the days of single-tiered competition. They have only placed in the top seven once since, in 1987.
And while there’s a long road ahead, it’s been a start impressive enough that it’s shaken the old gym rafters. The ghosts of Grey Ghosts past will all be watching.