Grady's boys basketball team makes do with a scrappy half-dozen

Basketball officials aren’t supposed to care about certain statistics when it comes to calling an infraction on the floor.

Still, in the fourth quarter of his team’s season opener this year, Grady boys coach Jim Kneipp felt the need to remind the referees what they surely knew from the beginning of the game.

“Hey look, we only have five players,” yelled Kneipp when post player Adam Lunsford picked up his fourth foul — only one away from taking a seat on the bench.

It’s the bench that’s presented the most difficulty for the Grady Bronchos this season. That’s because there’s usually not anyone on it.

Suiting up only five or six players in uniform has been standard fare for Kneipp’s squad this season. But the Bronchos have been more than game for their opponents so far and, heading into tonight’s game against Clovis Christian, hold a season record of 7-6.

“It been exciting, I’ll tell you that,” Kneipp said. “I tell our boys, ‘You can’t get hurt and you can’t foul out. It’s as simple as that.’”

Grady plays at the Class B level, which is for the smallest schools in the state.

Generally when a school is barely able to scrape enough players to put a team on the court, it’s not a good sign. Witness the Clovis Christian girls last year when the Eagles had to get two volunteers from the student body to make a squad — and finished with an 0-22 record.

That’s not the case with Grady however. The five upperclassmen for the Bronchos — senior forward Cody Poncho, senior forward Dylan Porter, senior guard Ethan Tongate, junior guard Trenton “Sunshine” Jones and junior center Lunsford - aren’t just putting on a uniform.

Earlier this year against Hondo Valley, currently the top-ranked Class B boys team in New Mexico, Grady lost by a scant three points. The final score was only 25-22 and that’s just what the Bronchos would like to see as far as point production is concerned.

“We can’t get into a running game with some of these people,” said Kneipp, fearing the escalation of whistle-blowing in an up-tempo contest as well as weariness from his own ranks.

“I thought they were scrappy and executed their offense very well,” Hondo Valley coach Brad Holland said. “They just don’t have much depth.”

Games aren’t the only trouble spot for the Bronchos. Only five or six varsity players, with freshman Isaac Bailey sometimes making up the sixth, practices are also a challenge.

Outside of three-on-three drills, Kneipp has had to resort to having his boys practice against the Grady girls team or against the school’s eighth-graders.

“When you practice against the junior high or the girls, it doesn’t help you out a lot except that there’s more bodies,” Kneipp said. “It helps them out, but for us we get kind of lackadaisical thinking we can do whatever we want.

“When we go against the guys (varsity teams), it’s not the same situation,” he added.

Still, it’s those eighth-graders that provide hope for Grady and Kneipp for the future. Closely monitoring the pace of play and the foul-count isn’t likely to continue much past this season for the Bronchos.

“We talked about it a lot, because we knew we weren’t going to have many players,” said Grady athletic director Alicia Rush of the preparation for the current campaign.

“We have a good group of eighth-graders who could be moved up if we need to,” Rush said. “Jim just wanted to keep that core group together if possible and not create animosity with any of the current players and parents.”

And, you know, Lunsford never did foul out of that opening game for the Bronchos. In fact, Grady has somehow managed to go through the season thus far without ever having only four players on the court.

“I love these kids; they’re so scrappy,” Kneipp said. “I have so many people come up after games and say, ‘I just love watching your team play.’"