It has been several years since the Upland boys basketball team has been competitive with the top teams in the Inland Valley. Well the Highlanders are a team finally headed in the right direction.
The Highlanders are 12-3, with eight straight wins under second-year head coach Anthony Mason.
They are coming off a 73-49 win over Sunny Hills in the championship game of the San Gabriel Valley Classic on Thursday at Monrovia High School. That was a win over a Sunny Hills team that went 4-1 at the recent Inland Empire Classic with one of those wins over much-improved Los Osos.
Mason is encouraged.
“We’re probably a little ahead of where I thought we would be,” Mason said. “Last year was a definite learning curve for me, getting to know the kids and them getting to know me and figuring out a good space to be in when it came to dealing with them.”
This is Mason’s first head job, although he was Upland’s interim coach the year veteran coach John McNally was sidelined from a stroke. Before getting the job at Upland full-time he had served as assistant coach for the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women’s basketball team.
Upland was 11-16 under the previous coach in 2014-2015, then went 10-18 last year in Mason’s first year so they have already easily surpassed that win total at the midway point.
Mason said a change in the style of play from last year has been beneficial. Last year the Highlanders were a more deliberate, half-court type team. Mow they’re pushing the pace and going more up-tempo.
It was a matter of happy median between what style was best given the personnel and what the players wanted to do.
“It was a matter of figuring out what system they were willing to buy into,” Mason said. “They wanted to get up and down the floor and I thought we had the athletes to do that so that has helped.”
Senior Osys Stokes has led the way, averaging 23 points a game and earning most valuable player honors in the just concluded tournament. Senior Nick Bates (14.5 ppg) is the second leading scorer with junior Bryce Parker averaging a double-double, 10-10.
