But there will only be one great team - Lone Peak.
To say that the Knights enter the tournament as favorites would rank among the biggest understatements of the season. Lone Peak is the giant shadow that looms above the other 15 teams. The Knights feature three Division I signees and an underclassman who's already one of the best players in the state. They are the team that battled national power St. Anthony's of New Jersey down to the wire during a preseason tournament in New Mexico.
With that in mind, it's safe to say that the storyline of this week will be
who can defeat a squad with a front line that rivals that of major colleges. And it's also safe to ask the question of what kind of effort will it take to defeat the Knights.
Bingham coach Mark Dubach has an answer. It just may not be the answer that everyone wants to hear.
"I think it's going to take a game similar to the one Villanova played against Georgetown," said Dubach, referring to the 1985 national title game in which 'Nova played a perfect game to defeat the Hoyas 66-64.
"A team is going to have to shoot 90 percent from the field the entire game and limit possessions. Lone Peak is unbelievable. In all my years of coaching in this state, I've never seen a more dominant team."
Provo, the defending Class 4A state champion, is the one in-state team that has beaten the Knights this season, a 64-62 win in the season opener for both teams. Brandon Davies, a 6-foot-8 junior, led the way for the Bulldogs with 16 points in that game, and 6-5 sophomore guard Kyle Collingsworth dropped in 16 as well.
In that loss, Lone Peak was without 6-8 senior Bracken Funk, who was still recovering from a torn ACL. Still, Provo was able to emerge because it had the personnel to go at the Knights.
"We just matched up and played," Bulldogs coach Craig Drury said. "We matched up well with them. They had a big man, we had a big man. They had big guards and we had big guards. They basically couldn't dominate us with size the way they could other teams. It was also the first game of the season for both teams. Them not having Funk hurt them. If they had him, maybe the game would've been different."
What makes Lone Peak so difficult to defend, is not its size, but the athleticism that goes along with that size. Tyler Haws, a 6-5 junior, gets out on the break as well as anybody in the state, and he's tough to stop in the open floor. Josh Sharp, a Utah signee, is long and bouncy at 6-7. Those two, along with Fresno State-bound Funk and 6-11 Iowa State signee Justin Hamilton, combine to pose an intimidating frontcourt that rebounds, scores and blocks shots with the best of them.
"A team is going to have to shoot the ball extremely well because you're not going to get second shots against them," Pleasant Grove coach Randy McAllister said. "You have to shoot a high percentage and limit turnovers."
tjones@sltrib.com
