Can SFHS boys basketball stay relevant without Cole?

Imagine this: Zack Cole earns the Rio Rancho Cleveland boys basketball job in 2016 and guides the Storm to multiple state championships.

Meanwhile, Santa Fe High continues to wander the prep desert, looking for the right coach to turn around the program.

It could have happened. Cole applied for the head coach openings at both schools in 2016, but when Cleveland didn’t have a teaching job that worked for him, Santa Fe High became his destination.

The rest is history — and arguably the best stretch of basketball for the program since the halcyon days of Lenny Roybal.

When Cole became the Demons’ coach in the spring of 2016, the program was in disarray. It had just forfeited its state tournament because a video of a hazing incident on a bus trip surfaced, leading to the dismissal of then-head man David Rodriguez.

The Demons were not bereft of talent, but they always seemed to find ways to almost win a big game. Or win a big game and follow it with an even bigger loss that wiped out momentum. If anything, the Demons were their own worst enemy, the proverbial Charlie Brown to Class 5A’s Lucy, who always pulled the ball away at the right time.

In the span of three seasons, Cole turned Santa Fe High into a legitimate contender. The highlight came during that miraculous 2018-19 season when the Demons appeared to be doing what they do best — letting an opportunity slip through their fingers — before pulling off an amazing turnaround.

After losing 6-foot-7 star forward Fedonta “JB” White to a patella injury and dropping four of five games in District 5-5A play, Santa Fe High went on an eight-game winning streak at the right time and found itself playing for a state championship in a packed Pit, losing to Albuquerque Atrisco Heritage Academy.

The long-awaited rebirth of Demons basketball had begun.

Seven straight postseason appearances.

Four district titles.

A state runner-up finish.

A dose of respectability that has endured.

The next head coach at Santa Fe High has huge shoes to fill, much like when Lenny Roybal left the school in 1980 to take over the College of Santa Fe men’s basketball program. It would take nine years before the Demons returned to the postseason, and then just for a two-year stint. The program’s résumé in between Roybal and Cole were brief flings of excellence interspersed with long rebuilds.

The next coach will inherit a team

that should challenge Los Lunas for district supremacy. There is a pipeline of talent established. Junior Lukas Turner, the Demons’ leading scorer, should return, along with a strong group of sophomores. Cole said the incoming freshman class is impressive, having seen it during open gyms this offseason.

Cole built a program that wants to press and play an up-tempo style because the Demons are not exactly teeming with size and strength.

But here is the caveat: Time is of the essence.

Every day that lingers between Cole’s departure and his replacement is one fewer day the next coach has to develop a rapport with the current and incoming group. And discord is a great way to unravel what has been weaved.

Santa Fe High is a good program, but not one that can withstand a bad hire. Schools like Cleveland, Albuquerque La Cueva and even Las Cruces could handle it because there is plenty of elite talent.

And, let’s be honest, they are places for which players want to play.

In the City Different, there is plenty of good talent that can be molded into excellence. But they can find other places to go, like St. Michael’s, Santa Fe Prep and even Academy for Technology and the Classics.

At Santa Fe High, it takes the right pair of hands to shape the program.