Nueva School boys’ basketball makes most of rare loss to Oakwood

Nueva (13-5) ran into a wall at home Saturday night, however, falling 55-38 to Oakwood-Morgan Hill in non-league action. The Mavericks were never in it, but they weren’t supposed to be. Oakwood (21-1) is in the midst of a fairytale season, and has now won 18 straight as one of the top contenders among CCS Division V teams.

“This is a special season,” Nueva head coach Barry Treseler said. “They have a special roster, and a special situation. And I’m just glad with how hard our guys played, and how hard we battled in the face of adversity. I think they faced adversity pretty well.”

The victory was a long-awaited one for Oakwood, and head coach Cort Jensen, as the Hawks entered play Saturday with a 0-4 all-time record against Nueva. The modest non-league rivalry began in the 2016-17 CCS playoffs, when Nueva earned its first-ever CCS victory in the Division V tournament opener against Oakwood.

“Their head coach is really good,” Jensen said. “People don’t realize how good he is. And we’ve played a number of times, and he always beats me. He just outcoaches me, and he’s just great. … It’s enjoyable to coach against someone who’s that great.”

In his 13th season at Oakwood, Jensen has installed quite the aggressive and effective defense. Nueva scored 38 points Saturday, just a tick below Oakwood’s season average of 38.1 points per game allowed.

If the Hawks’ spider-monkey defense has any weaknesses, they didn’t show on Nueva’s home court. The Mavericks failed to achieve any degree of penetration and, when they tried, were met with aggressive physicality.

It was often clean defense, though, as the Hawks totaled six blocked shots as a team. But the Hawks got mean when they needed to be, such as when Nueva ratcheted up the intensity to start the second half. It made for some brutal exchanges on the inside, including a dribble-drive attempt by Nueva guard Tyler Huang, which saw the senior leave his feet and only to get blasted in midair, leaving him tumbling hard to the floor.

“It didn’t hurt too much,” Huang said. “They’re a very physical team, so I was used to it. It set a tempo for the game that I think if we had matched better, we would have been more successful.”

Oakwood had just two scorers finish in double figures, including Lazar Cankovic’s game-high 17 points, and Marton Safranka’s double-double effort of 12 points and 10 rebounds.

“We work really hard at just playing a lot of man-to-man defense and helping off of that,” Jensen said. “And we spend a lot of practices on that. We have a lot of drills. We’ll spend two hours just on defense.”

Oakwood’s defense translated to the perimeter game as well. Nueva knocked down its first 3-pointer of the night midway through the first quarter, a perimeter splash by big-man Clay Malott. But it would be the only 3 on the night for the Mavericks, who shot just 1 of 19 from beyond the arc.

“That wasn’t our brightest night,” Treseler said. “But they’re long. When you think about trying to shoot 3s over Oakwood, and they’re playing man-to-man defense, it’s not easy. And we tip our cap to them a little bit. … We also didn’t finish shots inside as well. Again, they’re long. There’s a certain amount of length that is part of the game.”

Nueva point guard Connor McGraw paced his team with 13 points and seven rebounds but was often tied in knots by swarming double-teams in the backcourt.

Oakwood led wire-to-wire after jumping out to an early 6-0 lead and doubled up Nueva 24-12 early in the second quarter on a transition bucket by guard Kiefer Nguyen. Nueva cut the deficit to 8 two times, but the momentum kept being disrupted by Cankovic’s defense, as he executed two backcourt steals and turned them into uncontested transition layups.

The Hawks took a 32-20 lead into halftime. And after a Cankovic 3-pointer midway through the third quarter, they led by double digits the rest of the way.

“Oakwood’s a great team,” Huang said. “I think in the first half we were definitely a little fearful, and we didn’t come out necessarily playing our best basketball. But in the second half we definitely came out with more intensity. We knew what we were playing against, which is one of the best teams in our division in CCS. And we weren’t really as scared of them. I think in the second half we did much better.”

Treseler was intent on treating the loss as a teachable moment, though. It’s the approach that has seen Nueva come so far so fast in its brief history.

The Mavericks have been slugging it out in Private School Athletic League play, posting a 9-2 record in North Division play. Nueva’s only two league losses have been to fast and physical Summit Shasta, though both matchups were thrillers, with the first-place Black Bears starting the new year with a 47-45 victory Jan. 4, then following up with a 59-52 win Jan. 24.

Instilling a more physical brand of basketball was paramount in Treseler putting together Nueva’s non-league schedule this season, which opened with four straight games against Peninsula Athletic League teams.

“We’ve been gradually and steadily increasing our physicality,” Treseler said. “It’s been a big adjustment for our program, to be honest, over the last three years, four years. These kids don’t usually play year-round, so playing that kind of physical level is new for them.”

But the building blocks are there. After the 2018-19 season, when the Mavericks reached the CCS Division V championship game, the program graduated its first college-bound player in Kyle McGraw — Connor’s older brother — who is currently a junior at Caltech. And the turnout for Nueva boys’ basketball, since former head coach Chris Brandin started the program in 2015-16, has increased tenfold.

“Since then, this year, I think we have 45 guys in the program,” Treseler said. “And what Chris started, and what we’ve continued in the last few years, is building enthusiasm and excitement, and some degree of toughness in the program. And the guys have really responded. I think that the athletic department here gets absolutely the most out of what we’ve got to work with. And we’re just trying to squeeze one or two more drops out before the season’s over.”