The setting: The east gym at Brunswick High. The game: The Blue Devils’ boys basketball team against a random opponent.
The scenario: Freak athlete Kevin Simmons jab steps, crosses left, leaves his man in the dust and attacks the rim. Another defender scurries to help protect the paint. A posterizing jackhammer dunk is a real possibility.
Surely Simmons will try to become a social media legend, right?
Wrong.
Simmons reads the defense instinctively, with his first thought not that the basket is near, but that a teammate is wide open. Once the help defender gets close, he elevates, twists and passes to Zach Cebula, and the reigning Medina County 3-point champion doesn’t touch rim on a rainbow bomb.
This is how the undersized, selfless, competitive and gutsy Blue Devils operate. Coach Joe Mackey has called the style “dangerous” all season.
However, even Mackey can appreciate the Greater Cleveland Conference standings, as Brunswick is in first place while starting a point guard, three shooting guards and a small forward. The Blue Devils (14-4, 8-2) enter a GCC game tonight at Euclid (3-13, 1-9) 128 minutes from their first league crown since 1966.
Just keep chuckin,’ baby.
“That’s definitely our identity,” said pseudo center Aaron Badowski, the younger brother of county career 3-point leader Ryan Badowski. “We compare ourselves to the (Golden State) Warriors. We obviously share the ball really well. When we get into the paint, whoever’s open for the kick-out, that’s who’s shooting.
“They either go in or they don’t, but we’re really good at ’em.”
Think about what Badowski said in regard to the paint. The first thought isn’t to take a shot inside five feet. The first thought is find a teammate in position to shoot from at least 19 feet, 9 inches. Wide-open layups aren’t passed up, but you get the idea.
The statistics are mind-boggling. Brunswick is 202-for-498 from downtown, a .406 clip and an average of 11.22 makes per game. By comparison, the 2014-15 Houston Rockets own the NBA record at 11.38, and they played 48-minute games, not 32.
Fourteen of the last 15 games have featured at least 10 3-pointers. In fact, the Blue Devils have attempted 192 more 3-pointers than 2-pointers on the season, but still play inside enough to be 159-for-222 (.716) at the foul line.
Cebula (53-for-122, .434), Michael Quiring (41-for-107, .383), Kyle Goessler (33-for-76, .434) and Badowski (34-for-79, .430) all have 30 or more makes. Simmons is the lone starter who doesn’t, but the left-hander leads the team with a .460 percentage (29-for-63).
The money statistic is this: If the Blue Devils maintain the current 3-point pace, they will join Mentor, Franklin, Worthington Christian and St. Henry as the only schools in Ohio history to make 250 in a season.
“I don’t think any team can shoot them as well, and I don’t think any team can match us,” said Cebula, one of the most prolific 3-point men in school history with 127 in his career. “We shoot them real well.
“Part of the reason, if not half the reason, is we get each other shots. We move the ball really well, really fast and anyone who comes and watches us, that’s the first thing they say: ‘Wow, you guys really move the ball.’ Second, we shoot every day in practice and all the time on our own. It’s a force of habit now.”
Leading up to the season, Mackey, who was a drive-first point guard at Strongsville High and only made 81 threes in 97 games at Baldwin Wallace University, didn’t know the Blue Devils were going to play this way.
The only sure bets were All-Gazette point guard Quiring (5-foot-10), marksman Cebula (6-1) and 2014-15 subs Simmons (6-0) and Badowski (6-6) in the starting lineup. The other options were well-built 6-4 sophomore Zak Zografos and red-headed freshman Goessler (5-10), the team’s former ball boy who eats, sleeps and breathes Brunswick basketball.
Things became clear the Blue Devils were going to, by their standards, be average at rebounding and defense, so Mackey decided the best way to neutralize the weaknesses was to go small and fire at will.
The results have been breathtaking, as the starting five complements each other perfectly. Quiring is the classic unflappable lead guard, Simmons creates off the dribble as well as anyone in the GCC, Cebula is money off screens and under duress, Badowski opens driving lanes by taking opposing centers away from the basket and fearless X-factor Goessler, who has taken some of the biggest crunch-time shots of the season, arguably is the best long-range threat from the corners.
Like Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Co., the offense is impossible to stop.
“We know if we hit more threes than they hit twos, obviously we’re going to win,” Quiring said.
Brunswick has done a lot of that, clinching its 17th straight season of at least 14 wins last week against Solon. The Blue Devils also average 61.6 points, on pace to be the third-highest figure in Mackey’s 20 seasons as coach.
Individual glory is for losers. These boys are all about their warm-up T-shirts that say “#15as1” across the chest.
They’re also all about the long ball. After all, chicks dig them.
“You don’t sleep well at night playing this way, but we are who we are,” Mackey said. “That’s what we’ve said all year. It’s worked for us, so we’re certainly not going to change it.”