By MARIO AGUIRRE | STAFF WRITER
As Lancaster coach Ferrin Douglas traveled to San Antonio, where his team will take on Edinburg Vela in the UIL state semifinals today, he was reminded of a lesson he learned in 2001.
At the time, Douglas was an assistant at Dallas Lincoln, which was an overwhelming favorite to beat San Antonio Lanier. His team, after all, was led by Chris Bosh — a 6-foot-10 center and the fourth overall pick in the 2003 NBA draft — while Lanier maxed out its front court at 6-foot-4.
Still, Lincoln went on to lose 50-48 in the state semifinals.
“That loss pretty much carried me throughout my coaching career,” Douglas told The Monitor and RGVSports.com on Wednesday. “We were the superior team on paper, but they beat us.
“So we’re not coming here overconfident because we’re bigger than (Edinburg Vela) on paper, or because we look better on paper. We still have to play.”
Lancaster (34-2), by most accounts, is the favorite to win tonight’s game against Edinburg Vela (35-2). The Tigers are the defending state champions. They have three Division I signees on their roster, including a 6-foot-9 center. And they’ve won 30 games in a row, including the last four playoff games by an average margin of 27.5 points.
Yet, as the team embarked for San Antonio on Wednesday, Douglas spoke of a quiet calm surrounding his players. There’s a certain level of comfort in returning to the Alamodome, where they were crowned state champions last year, but Douglas sees the other side of it — where a game can slip away, if mismanaged.
“I’ve been beaten by smaller teams before,” Douglas said. “So we’re coming here prepared to play, regardless of height.
“You never disrespect your opponents. You never look down on your opponents. So we’re just trying to utilize our strengths to our advantage.”
That strength, for starters, is size. Edinburg Vela’s tallest player is Luis Salinas, a 6-foot-4 senior who started the first 20 games before coming off the bench. He will almost certainly be assigned to 6-foot-9 Mississippi commit Nate Morris.
As the playoffs have progressed, the SaberCats have talked about the degree of difficulty in pulling rebounds with each passing series. Flour Bluff posed a similar challenge with its towering front line, taking a 58-51 lead into the final quarter before Vela won that area round game. Lancaster, though, boasts the loftiest of all challenges.
The Tigers, ranked No. 3 by the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches, has six returners, including three seniors who will play at the Division I level in Deon Barrett (UTEP), Morris and JaColby Pemberton (Louisiana Tech).
Barrett has proven himself a gifted two-way player. Pemberton, a 6-foot-6 swingman, is averaging a team-high 20.2 points and 9.8 rebounds per game during the playoffs. And Morris has developed his offensive game after making his mark on the defensive end.
With a deep bench, Lancaster has the numbers to press and trap relentlessly, similar to what Vela does at times. But the SaberCats will almost surely try their hand at slowing down the game to prevent any transition points, like they did against Laredo Nixon.
“We just have to stay sharp,” Douglas said. “We definitely know about Vela’s key players, so we’re not going in blind. But, basically, we’re sticking with our routine. When you have kids running the same system, probably second or third years, I think they have it down. They can do it in their sleep.
“We just have to make sure we stay focused.”