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Moving forward: Christian reflects on Broncos' special season
By Richard C. White, rwhite@starlocalnews.com
Most high school basketball programs wouldn't be satisfied with a first round ouster, but given how far McKinney Boyd has come in recent years, the Broncos playoff appearance this season was merely the groundwork for greater success to come.
"It's not hard to wrap this thing up as a complete and utter success," said Dean Christian, Boyd head coach. "These kids have done something that no other team in McKinney Boyd history has been able to accomplish. They're the most successful senior class in our program's history."
This season the Broncos won 20 games for the first time in program history in addition to also making the playoffs for the first time. Boyd would lose to Richardson Berkner in its bi-district matchup.
The Broncos rushed out of the gate to dominate their non-district schedule with an impressive 16-2 record to start the year.
"We were able to establish a high intensity and high accountability every day in practice," Christian said. "And that carried over into the majority of our games. These kids held each other accountable and played hard and smart and most of all they played together."
Boyd, however, would struggle in 10-5A action, losing its first four games to district opponents.
"If there's such a thing as trying too hard, that's what we were doing," Christian said. "We wanted it so bad that we just weren't converting. We weren't as focused as we should have been in those initial district games. The effort was there, but we didn't have any direction to that effort."
All four of those losses were by single digits. The Broncos would regroup and win four of their last six district games to clinch their program's first ever playoff berth.
"We settled down," Christian said. "We were able to win those games down the stretch because we did what we do best. We played hard and smart. It took a lot of effort and poise from our guys. We knew we could do it, we just had to have some patience."
Boyd is losing nearly its entire roster to graduation, including key players Michael Grant, Mikel Parish, Faisal Mansour and Martez Butler. While this would be alarming for most programs, it's not a cause for concern for the Broncos, who before they had 20 wins this season, they had 19 the year before.
"My first year we graduated eight seniors and last year we graduated nine," Christian said. "And this year we're graduating eleven. We've always had a senior-dominated team, so we're going to bring some guys up next year and be ready."
In addition to the crop of new varsity players the Broncos will usher in next year, Christian has high hopes for current juniors Zach Rubel and Taber MacFadden moving forward.
"The only two returners that we have on the varsity club are Zach and Taber," he said. "Those two saw a lot of playing time this year, so I have high expectations for them for leadership. You can expect them to be out front, leading our group."
While the accomplishments from this past season were groundbreaking for the program, Christian is ready to quickly put those achievements in the rearview as the Broncos will strive to continue their recent run of consistent improvement next fall.
"It was fun to break that playoff threshold," he said. "It's no longer an unknown to us now. Now we know how that experience feels and we want to get back there again and do a better job next time."
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