Bishop Gorman basketball team to beat

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Christopher DeVargas

Bishop Gorman basketball players, from left, Charles O’Bannon Jr., Christian Popoola and Jamal Bey.

Fri, Dec 2, 2016 (2 a.m.)

2016 Las Vegas Sun HS Basketball Media Day

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The Bishop Gorman High basketball team won’t have the tallest player on the court every game this season.

A more than five-year streak of having a near 7-footer in the lineup — the likes of Ben Carter, Chase Jeter, Stephen Zimmerman Jr. and Zach Collins — has come to an end for the reigning state champions.

“It’s been an adjustment for us,” Gorman coach Grant Rice said. “We knew it was coming all spring and summer, so we were able to make some changes. We are going to get up and down the court (faster) and pick up (defensively) more in the full court.”

Gorman will employ a lineup of guards and forwards — no center — and has an abundance of players who are 6-foot-5 to 6-foot-7. A few of those players are some of the city’s best, helping Gorman land at No. 21 in the USA Today preseason rankings.

Gorman returns four-star recruiting prospect Chuck O’Bannon Jr., who scored more than 20 points per game last season, and BYU commit Christian Popoola Jr. at guard. On the wing is junior Jamal Bey, who has scholarship offers from the likes of USC and Utah.

“I like our team. I like our guys. We have several guys who can get after it,” Rice said.

Gorman hosts Santa Margarita of California at 7 p.m. today in its season opener. The Gorman schedule again includes games against national opponents in the preseason, most notably Dec. 15-20 in its Tarkanian Classic and at the end of the month in Beach Ball Classic in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

“People are talking a lot of mess that we don’t have the bigs so we aren’t going to be as good as we were (in past seasons),” Popoola said. “We are just going to put our heads down and work.”

The experience against quality out-of-state competition will make Gorman players more seasoned to face local opponents. It trailed Centennial in the fourth quarter of last season’s Sunset Regional championship game and won when Centennial missed a shot at the buzzer en route to capturing a fifth straight state title.

Centennial and Clark, the three-time defending 3A classification state champions who are playing their first season in the 4A, are each expected to challenge Gorman. It’s a challenge the Gorman players welcome.

“We were lucky to get that win, actually," O'Bannon said of the Centennial game. "As a team, we played terrible. We couldn't get it going throughout the whole game. That gave them confidence they could be on the court with us."

Ray Brewer can be reached at 702-990-2662 or [email protected]. Follow Ray on Twitter at twitter.com/raybrewer21

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