Heading into Wednesday’s Sweet 16 home showdown against No. 16 Mesa Ridge, No. 1 Valor Christian is as hot as any Class 4A team in the state. Coach Troy Pachner’s Eagles (20-4, 13-1 Jeffco) haven’t lost since Jan. 11. They possess a triple scoring threat in seniors Jalen Sanders,Kayle Knuckles and Dylan McCaffrey.
Denver Post preps editor Kyle Newman caught up with Pachner to discuss the postseason chances for Valor Christian, how his team feeds off the success of the girls program and much more.
:I imagine you’re watching tons of film on Mesa Ridge. What are the keys to victory against them?
:We played them this summer in an event at Lewis-Palmer, and they were missing their really good guard,Dalen Jackson. So there’s some familiarity there from playing them in the summer, but that’s summer ball, and this is a whole different situation. Mesa can really score the ball — they’re leading 4A in scoring (at 78.7 points per game), and they’ve made an incredible 202 threes which is a big-time number. They’ve got kids who can shoot it all over the place, plus a bunch of 6-2, 6-3 guys who can get to the rim. They’re a dangerous team.
:The No. 7 Valor Christian girls play Tuesday night in their own Sweet 16 matchup at home against No. 11 George Washington. How have you fed off the girls program this season and over the past couple years when they’ve won the state title?
:Coach Jessika Caldwell and myself have a rapport, and we want to be supportive of each other’s programs. In our girls program, you’ve got back-to-back state champions and, through midseason, things were a little bit rough as they were trying to find their way. They constantly reload, though, and lose great players every year and people on the outside think there’s no way they can make a title run again. But Coach Caldwell and her staff do such an incredible job that by playoff time, no one wants to be playing them.
From a boys program perspective, we want to be like the girls. We want to reach the heights that our girls program has reached, and with the way they do it too: with confidence, with a defensive approach to the game and the fact they’re just so talented as shooters.
:Back to your team, what’s been the key to your dominancedown the stretch of the regular season?
A: You have to play to your strengths, and we have dominant interior kids who are talented, physical athletes in Sanders, Knuckles and McCaffrey. When that trio is in there at 6-5, 6-6, that’s a load for teams to handle. So that’s probably been the biggest difference for us lately: We understand that, from an offensive perspective, we’re going to beat you inside-out.
Conversely, another big part of ourturn was that, in our last loss to D’Evelyn on Jan. 11 and a couple other games this year, we just weren’tengaged and committed to defense and communication. When we play like that we’re just not very good, and no team really is. That loss to D’Evelyn was a slap in the face and a reminder that if we don’t get back to core defense, we won’t get back to the Final Four or to the state championship game.
: With Sanders and Knuckles in particular, what is it about those guys that’s going to enable them to lead your team back to the 4A title game?
A:One big thing we have going for us is experience as a group. We lost two kids from last year who were outstanding locker room guys and core players in our program but really didn’t have a huge opportunity on the floor. So our whole group this year has been there, and we made it to that championship game (against Pueblo West) and obviously that didn’t go as desired.
Specifically with Jalen and Kayle, they’re good-sized guys and we’ve spent four years working on performance training at Valor, and you’re starting to really see it, because when you look around our group these are guys who really know their way around the weightroom. That translates to physical advantages out them on the court, and they’re both very talented on the offensive end. Jalen can create a shot from anywhere on the floor, and Kayle is one of those athletes who has incredible coordination, and he can catch and finish with either hand around the basket. With those guys leading the way, our confidence is high.
