Renck: Kent Denver “Run Devils” have a blast going fast. Can they finish race with a state title?

When sports stopped, Todd Schayes decided it was time to go fast.

In his first three decades at Kent Denver High School, Schayes was a coach his peers envied. He ran the same 2-3 zone his cousin Danny, later a Denver Nugget, played at Syracuse. He aimed to win 42-41, micromanaging a half-court game and believing the best offense was a good defense.

Then COVID-19 was declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020.

“I knew when we started playing again, we would be different. We would play 17 kids, and shoot 3s every eight seconds,” Schayes said at a recent practice. “It would make the parents happy. And it would be good for the mental health of the kids.”

The smiles on their faces were palpable. Schayes wishes he knew at 40 what he knew at 60 about how fun it is to score 80. Or even 100.

Despite anxious moments littered throughout, the top-ranked Sun Devils raced to a 79-69 victory over The Academy on Wednesday night in the Class 4A Great 8 after dark at the Denver Coliseum. It moved Kent Denver one step closer to its first state championship since 1997.

The banner hanging in the gym in Englewood looks lonely, the single title not representative of a school that has been thisclose so many times, including falling in the title game last season.

That failure did not light a fire so much as keep the pilot light on.

“It teaches you about motivation, about determination,” said senior guard Elvis Lloyd, son of former Broncos receiver Brandon Lloyd, who poured in a game-high 27 points. “You learn how much you want it, how much it would mean.”

Lloyd calls his father his superhero, but Elvis wore a cape on Wednesday. Every time things got greasy, he nailed a 3-pointer or bounced in for an acrobatic layup like he was on a trampoline.

You don’t so much watch the Run Devils — their unofficial nickname — as experience them. It is unorthodox chaos. Remember when the past was fast with Loyola Marymount’s Paul Westhead? It’s like that, copied and updated from the attack perfected by Nova Southeastern University’s Jim Crutchfield. Full-court pressing, fast-breaking on missed baskets, running on made baskets, and shooting within eight seconds of gaining possession.

“I have been playing since I was 5 years old,” said star junior guard Caleb Fay, who finished with 16 points, 12 boards and six assists as his team moved into a Final Four matchup Friday against No. 4 Prospect Ridge Academy. “And this is the most fun I have had in basketball in my life.”

Kent Denver pays little mind to old-school principles. They overplay to create reach-around turnovers. They trap. They chase. And sometimes, if they need a breath, somebody, like junior Josiah Seyoum, takes a charge under the basket. They can live with opponents’ layups — The Academy from Westminster shot 53 % from the field — because they believe in their own bursts.

When Kent Denver’s lead shriveled to 68-63 with 2:34 remaining, Schayes turned panic into purpose, calming the players and his assistants.

“He’s always on point,” sophomore guard Quinn Goldberg said. “He’s so supportive. It’s awesome.”

That is part of the charm of playing at the speed of fiber optics. So much action, yet so much room to develop the plot. Many of these players are lifers, kids who started at Kent Denver in middle school, with a few, like Fay, who had Schayes as their sixth-grade English teacher.

With three hours of homework looming — Kent Denver prides itself in being the state’s hardest academic school — the players still linger after workouts to get up more shots.

It is hard not to get tired just watching them practice. They scrimmage relentlessly. First one to 150 wins. And if they don’t play without mercy over 94 feet, the basketballs go away and they run sprints.

“We don’t do the walkup style,” said Gil Schayes, the coach’s son, who is headed to play for Colorado School of Mines. “We get a lot of possessions. And everybody gets a chance to show what they can do.”

A funny thing happens when you condition like you are in the Alps stage of the Tour de France. Minds don’t get tired, either. After the Sun Devils advanced to the coliseum, several players celebrated by binge-watching “The Lord of the Rings.” Beats studying for AP Physics.

This is who this group is. They have taken ownership. They care for each other. How much this run means to the seniors is evident by the knee brace on point guard Clay Tierney’s left leg. He tore his ACL two weeks ago. His teammates rallied in his absence, wearing shirts that read “Play like Clay.” Except he is not done. Tierney is logging a few minutes, unwilling to accept the doctor’s diagnosis that his season was over.

“I was going to practice, kept shooting and felt good,” Tierney said. “I thought I could do it. I have no college career. I have two games left. I will do whatever it takes to help my teammates.”

When Schayes adopted this approach — he was persuaded to do it by legendary Metro State coach Mike Dunlap, while former Nuggets boss George Karl is a sounding board and plans to be in attendance Friday — he figured it would be a blast to be fast.

But does it have to go by so quickly?

Because of his son, Schayes knows these players better than any he has coached. He wants them to cross the finish line not for him, but for them. That is what changing to the uptempo system, after all, was all about.

“I go to the movies in my head sometimes and see the closing credits of us cutting down the net,” Schayes said. “It would be so special for the players, the assistants. If we are fortunate enough to do it, I will be so proud because I will know how hard they worked and that they earned it.”

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