Boys Basketball: Castro Valley Enters Playoffs With State Title Potential

In all likelihood, boys basketball coach Nick Jones will never have another team as talented as the one he has this year.

"It's definitely the most talented team I've had," he said.

With three players — Roderick Bobbitt, Juan Anderson and Chris Read — who landed on the preseason McDonald's All American watch list, preseason expectations placed on the team were sky high.

The Trojans didn't disappoint, putting together a 25-1 season and an undefeated run through the Hayward Area Athletic League, capped by a 67-51  before a sold-out crowd of 3,200 people at Cal State East Bay last week.

The league title was Jones' main goal for the season, but what the team does during the postseason will ultimately determine how it stacks up historically. 

Top-seeded Castro Valley opens NCS play tonight when it hosts No. 8 Antioch at 7 p.m.

"It's pretty exciting," Jones said. "There is a good buzz on campus and people have been calling about tickets since the regular season ended. Everybody is pretty juiced.

"We're happy, we're excited to win the league, we're happy to have a high seed, but Antioch is a good team. We'll be ready for them, but it'll be a good quarterfinal."

Jones said Antioch reminds him of a typical HAAL team: it plays hard, it rebounds well, it is athletic and aggressive.

"I've seen them twice ... against Heritage about three weeks ago and against College Park on Tuesday," Jones said. 

The Panthers finished tied with No. 6 Deer Valley atop the Bay Valley Athletic League standings and are led by 6-foot-6 senior Michael Crawley, who averages 13.7 points per game.

As good as Crawley has been, matching up with the Trojans will surely be Antioch's most difficult test of the year.

Anderson, Bobbitt and Read — all three-year varsity players — garner most of the attention (and rightfully so), but Castro Valley has shown its supporting cast is talented as well.

Senior Alex Foster, who was a varsity call-up late in his sophomore year, has had big games (22 points against Hayward, 11 against O'Dowd), as have senior Andrew Thompson and junior Dawson Johnson.

If the Trojans win, they'll host the winner of Saturday's meeting between No. 4 Newark Memorial and No. 5 Berkeley on Wednesday. Regardless of which team the Trojans would potentially play, there will be some revenge to be had.

Newark knocked Castro Valley out of the NCS playoffs last year and in 2008 and Berkeley handed the Trojans their only loss this season. Note: Castro Valley's loss to Salesian this year was reversed due to Salesian's use of an ineligible player. He was later declared eligible.

Don't ask Jones to look ahead though.

"Right now it's Antioch, Antioch, Antioch," he said. "They haven't lost in a while, we need to stay focused."

Both teams that advance to next week's NCS final will automatically qualify for the Northern California playoffs. The Trojans are currently ranked No. 7 in the state and No. 2 in Northern California by Cal-Hi Sports.