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UNION CITY — Melvin Easley is all about motivation, details and metaphors. Before each season, the James Logan boys basketball coach tells his players a story about two people getting on a treadmill.
“One of two things is going to happen,” Easley says. “You’re going to get off first or I am going to die on that treadmill. Dying on that treadmill means I am going to give everything I have until that very last second.”
Logan has not fallen off the treadmill. The Colts have huffed and puffed all season behind the tenacious Thompson cousins (guards Brett and Brah’Jon), lanky Malcolm Steadman on the wing, blue-collar Gabriel Hawkins and Daniel Combs near the glass and miracle shot Tim Oldham among those contributing off the bench.
They won their league championship, reached a section final and on Tuesday celebrated a regional title.
Friday night, Logan will aim for its first state crown when it faces defending champion Chino Hills in the Division I title game at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, the culmination of a long road traveled that began in the summer when no one had secured a role on the team.
“It took everything,” Hawkins said. “Hark work. Coming to practice every day. Coming to workouts, on the track, even when you feel like you don’t want to do it. Credit to this team, man, because we never stop fighting. We’re so resilient. No matter who we play, we’re going to fight to the end.”
One season after bowing out of the postseason in its first game, Logan is in position to achieve its state-championship goal because it challenged itself early against the likes of Salesian, Sheldon and Modesto Christian and stuck to the treadmill when the games got tight in the playoffs.
The Colts made the North Coast Section Division I final when Oldham, whom Easley said is probably the best sixth man in Northern California, retrieved a loose ball near midcourt in front of the scorer’s table and swished an off-balanced, turnaround 30-footer at the buzzer to stun Dublin 86-83, a basket immediately dubbed the Logan Miracle.
Logan fell short of the section crown, scoring only two points in the fourth quarter as De La Salle stormed back for an eight-point win.
But tears of heartbreak that night turned into tears of joy 12 days later. A victory over De La Salle would have certainly sent Logan to the Open Division, a best-of-the-best bracket that many thought would include Logan even with the section final loss. Instead, the Colts were seeded No. 1 in Division I and never left their home gym in Union City as they beat Folsom in the quarterfinals, Bishop O’Dowd in the semifinals and Branson on Tuesday in the final.
Along the way, the internal stories magnified.
On the morning of the season opener, a victory over Campolindo, Brett Thompson got up early for a Saturday, anxious to get going after watching from the bench his entire junior season. Thompson transferred from Mountain House High near Tracy, where he’d been living with a relative, and was not cleared by the NCS until this season.
“I’ve been waiting for this game since last year when we first started,” he said after the 69-64 win over Campolindo, the eventual NorCal Division II champion. “I woke up at 7 o’clock this morning and went to go put up shots. I was ready for this game since yesterday.”
Thompson, with his moptop curly blonde hair in tow, would go on to earn Mission Valley Athletic League player of the year honors, leading the Colts through his hard-nosed, emotionally charged style and ability to make plays on offense and defense.
In the semifinals against O’Dowd, Thompson scored 10 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter as Logan turned a two-point deficit into a 12-point win. In the victory over Branson, he scored 11 of his 14 points in the second half.
“He’s a natural leader,” Easley said. “He’s what I consider the lion or the tiger tamer. But the lion tamer is also a lion himself. He came in, and you could see the difference. Last year we went one-and-done.”
Thompson’s presence helped in the development of his younger cousin, Brah’Jon, who played last season as a sophomore and has blossomed into a difference-maker.
In the win over Branson, Brah’Jon’s three-point play with 88 seconds left on a slice through the lane gave Logan the lead for good, a play Easley instilled in him over the summer.
“We have our own progression camp, and I was really furious with him,” Easley said. “He didn’t want to attack as much. ‘I’m a 3-point shooter.’ We had to bring him in to show him that inside-out game is going to be his best asset. Brah’Jon has grown so much since last year. It’s kind of cool to watch. He’s still that kid. But you can see how his game has progressed.”
Steadman, a 6-6 wing, bided his time, waiting to break out. It came the past week when he scored 16 points against O’Dowd and 17 against Branson.
“When Malcolm gets going, you cannot stop us,” Easley said. “When he gets going, his shots are falling and he’s flying in there grabbing rebounds, it is really hard to stop us. Finally, we got a big game out of him. I told him it was going to come. Stop reading that Instagram crap, that Facebook crap. That’s all noise. Stop listening to the noise, and he turned around and had a great game.”
Hawkins and Combs do much of the dirty work near the basket despite being under-sized for their positions. Hawkins, a first-team all-league player, is 6-4. He’s a team captain, along with Brett Thompson and Steadman. Combs, a transfer from Moreau Catholic, is 6-3.
“You see what Gabe does,” Easley said. “End of the game, a lot of teams fall asleep on him. Just a big. Just there for the body. He can finish.”
Hawkins lost his mom to cancer last season, a passing that Easley said affected the entire team because of her support.
“She’d bring us cookies, bring all this stuff for us,” Easley added.
When the Colts cut down the nets after their regional championship win, Hawkins held a picture of his mom — with the hashtag HawkinsAngel — while standing on the ladder. His younger brother, Coby, also is on the team.
Gabriel Hawkins made two free throws with 7.9 seconds left Tuesday, the second that bounced seemingly to the heavens before falling through the hoop, to ice the victory and send the Colts to the Division I state final for the second time in three seasons.
The aftermath left several players in tears, including Combs, who won a Division II regional title with Moreau two years ago.
“It meant a lot to Daniel,” Easley said. “Daniel is an emotional kid. All my kids are. They play every game like it’s the last game, man. That’s what I love about these kids.”
The next game really is the last game.
The players have reached the mountaintop, a season-long target, and now are looking for a better view.
“Chino is Chino,” Hawkins said. “They’re a really good team, but I want to win the state championship.”
FRIDAY’S DIVISION I BOYS STATE FINAL
James Logan (27-6) vs. Chino Hills (24-10) at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, 8 p.m.
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