Two years ago, the Edmonds Community College men’s basketball team took aim at a league title, only to fall short in the tournament championship game.
After placing sixth a year ago, the Tritons will try again this week with another formidable squad that finished 24-5 overall, 12-2 in the league’s North Region, and as the region’s top seed for the upcoming Northwest Athletic Conference tournament, Saturday through Tuesday at the Toyota Center in Kennewick.
Does this Edmonds CC team have a chance at a championship? Third-year head coach Kyle Gray said simply, “We think we do.”
The Tritons, he went on, “understand what we’re capable of. We also understand that we have to do everything we can to play our style and impose our will on the other team. But if can match up with other team and if things go our way, we can be there at the end.
“And I definitely think we have enough talent to be there, for sure,” he said.
The 2012-13 team was led by forward Shaq McKissic, currently a senior at Arizona State, and guard Ricardo Maxwell, a junior at Western Washington. That pair finished the season among the NWAC leaders in scoring and other statistics.
This season’s team, by contrast, has just one player listed among the league’s top 20 in several statistics. Forward Zach Pederson, a 6-foot-5 sophomore from Snohomish’s Glacier Peak High School, is averaging 17.6 points and 9.4 rebounds per game, with those numbers ranking 19th and fifth in the NWAC through the end of the regular season.
On Tuesday, Pederson was named to the All-North Region first team, as was teammate Charlie Smith, a guard who averaged 14.2 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game.
Compared to his 2012-13 squad, “this year’s team has a lot more balance and a lot more depth,” Gray said. “You can’t just focus on (stopping) two guys. You have to focus on a lot more than that. … And it seems like we have a different guy stepping up every night to be our leading scorer.
“Not to take anything away from that team two years ago,” he said, “but this team has a broader talent base. Just depth alone, that’s the biggest difference. But in terms of similarities, both teams were able to get it done.”
The Tritons will open the NWAC tournament at 2 p.m. Saturday against Mount Hood CC. The tourney uses a double-elimination format, but teams must stay unbeaten to reach the championship game.
Edmonds CC will be joined at the NWAC tournament by fellow North Region rivals Bellevue College, Everett CC and Peninsula CC.
Everett CC, under longtime coach Larry Walker, finished with 8-6 league and 17-12 overall records, but capped its regular season last weekend with an impressive 78-74 road win against Bellevue College, which was atop the region standings at the time.
“We’ve been in almost every game,” Walker said. “We’ve had some tough losses, but we’ve also had some unbelievable wins down the stretch. And we pulled off a couple of miracle wins to get in the tournament.”
Everett CC, which will open against Lane CC at 10 p.m. Saturday, is led by the guard tandem of Derek Brown Jr., an All-Region first-team selection, who averages 18.7 points, 5.4 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game; and Dominique McClendon, who averages 17.7 points and 7.4 rebounds.
Though the Trojans might seem a tourney long shot, at least based on their season mark, Walker believes his squad will be in the chase.
“If you look at all 16 teams in this tournament,” he said, “any one of the 16 could win it. And once we get over there, everybody is 0-0.”
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