Boys basketball: Sectional final appearance earns Newman’s Ray Sharp SVM Coach of the Year distinction

STERLING – The Newman boys basketball team went 25-10 this season under the guidance of 15th-year head coach Ray Sharp, reaching the Class 1A Pecatonica Sectional championship against Scales Mound to qualify for its seventh Sweet 16 appearance in the last 10 years.

For a great season and rallying his team through early adversity, Sharp has been recognized as the 2021-2022 SVM Boys Basketball Coach of the Year.

Although the Comets won 21 of their last 26 games and made a deep playoff run, their season outlook wasn’t always rosy.

Coming off a COVID-shortened season in which it finished 4-4, and playing without star senior guard/forward Marcus Williams for the first four games, Newman sputtered out of the gate to start 2021, dropping five of its first nine contests before the new calendar year. Two three-point losses to Pecatonica on Nov. 27 and Dec. 17, and a 58-54 loss to Rock Falls on Dec. 21 got the team off on the wrong foot.

Not finding the success they had hoped for at the beginning of the year, Sharp and his coaching staff went back to the drawing board.

“We started out struggling a little bit. Some of that was football injuries. Marcus [Williams] didn’t play the first four games of the year, so obviously, when your best player isn’t playing, you’re not as good. We had some other injuries that we were battling at that point, where even if people were playing, they weren’t 100% quite healthy,” Sharp said.

“We kind of kept battling through that, and then got to our ninth game of the season and we lost, and we were 4-5. Assistant coach Bob Rosengren and I kind of took a look at the team, and at that point, we had nine games of stats to look at. And we just made the decision that, we’re not a very big team anyway, but we’re going to get our biggest lineup basically out there, that was really our best defensive and our best rebounding lineup, is what we ended up going to. So we made that change after our ninth game. It probably cost us a little bit on the offensive end, but we just felt that we were going to win games with our defense and we were going to lose games if we didn’t rebound.”

That lineup change, along with a healthier team later in the year, made all the difference, as Newman went 21-5 after the 4-5 start.

Sharp said the change was difficult for his players at first. Sacrificing playing time and adjusting to new roles, especially in-season, was a tough ask.

But the players ultimately bought in, adopted a team-first mindset, and did all they could to make the Comets better.

“I think, first of all, communicating after that ninth game. We got together as a team, and Coach Rosengren and myself, we communicated to the team our thoughts and why we were making the change, and that we needed them to buy into their new roles. And that’s hard, especially for kids that might’ve been starting that weren’t starting anymore, or might’ve been playing more,” Sharp said.

“We moved Marcus to the wing at that point, so that meant anybody else playing the wing got less time. I don’t care who you are on the team, all of a sudden your best player is playing the same position you’re playing, everybody else’s time goes down. We kind of went three big with Marcus at the wing, and Ethan [Van Landuit] and Lucas [Simpson] at the 4 and the 5. It meant a big adjustment for everybody, and I think it takes players a while to get used to that, but I think they bought in, they tried. Nobody’s happy when they’re not playing as much as they want to play, and nobody plays as much as they want to play. So it was a big adjustment, but I thought the team accepted the change and rallied around it, and did whatever they could in their new role to help the team.”

While the lineup change, and improved defense and rebounding in particular, had much to do with Newman’s turnaround, the all-around play of its five starters set the tone for the rest of the season.

“Marcus is a great player, Lucas Simpson really was a big part of our team as a sophomore, and I thought, by the end of the year, Nolan Britt was playing exceptional point guard,” Sharp said. “Ethan Van Landuit brought us a lot of toughness. And then nobody is more of a team player than Owen McBride. He just does everything at 100% and gives you everything he’s got.”

During his tenure with Newman, Coach Sharp has accumulated a career record of 314-120, winning eight regional and three sectional titles, making seven Sweet 16s and three Elite 8s, and garnering one third-place finish at state over that span.

On Jan. 12, he picked up his 300th career coaching win against Bureau Valley at the Storm Cellar in Manlius.

The accomplishment is a testament to his coaching staffs, the quality of players he’s had, and the support his program has received over the years, he says.

“That’s really special. Obviously, you don’t get that without having great players and great assistant coaches, good support from the school, and obviously great families involved in the program,” Sharp said. “And I’ve just been very blessed with great players and blessed with a hard-working coaching staff. And then obviously, our families supporting us when you’re gone all the time during basketball season. We scout a lot, so we’re gone a lot. And having our families’ support and the family support of the players and the school’s support; I’ve just been very blessed with my situation at Newman.”

The 300th win was also satisfying due to the back-and-forth nature of the game.

“We kind of had to win that game twice,” Sharp recalled. “We took a big lead in that game, and then Bureau Valley came back and took the lead, and we fought back and won it again, so it was a very gratifying win.”

Another memorable win for Sharp and Newman this year came against Eastland in the Class 1A regional semifinals.

Against first-team all-state guard Kellen Henze and the Cougars, the Comets had their hands full, but they still found a way to get the job done in overtime, keeping their season alive for another week.

“The year we went to state and got third, in the semifinals of the regionals, we beat Eastland in overtime. So then this year, semifinals of the regionals, we beat Eastland in overtime. Some of these things start to line up and you kind of start pointing them out to the team,” Sharp said. “The Henze kid was just a tremendous player that night. He had 32 [points] and 20 [rebounds], and we’re down 2 with 2.8 or 2.9 to go, and have to go the full court. We run a play that we practice a lot and get a shot off and bank in a 2 that was kind of on the line, would’ve been a 3, but banked in a 2 to tie the game. So, very fortunate to get to overtime. Then, in overtime, we go up 1 and we foul their best player with 3.8 seconds to go at our free-throw line, so 75 feet from the bucket. We were just fortunate he was so wore out, he actually missed the front end of the 1-and-1, and we got the rebound. We were very fortunate to win that game.”

The more Newman won in the postseason, the more it believed it had a shot at the state title.

For a while, Sharp said it was a challenge getting the team to believe in its potential as much as he and his assistant coaches did.

“We always tell the team every year, our goal is to win the state championship, and that’s how we’re going to approach the year. I think getting the team to believe in the fact that they were good enough and getting them to accept that vision that we’re good enough to get to state, sometimes as coaches, you believe it more than the team does,” he said. “And we had to work hard to get them to see that vision and believe that that was possible. And I think by the end of the year, they were thinking that.”

Although there was some disappointment following the 62-49 loss to Scales Mound in the sectional championship, Sharp and the Newman players finished the season knowing they gave all they could.

“Scales Mound gets third, and obviously they beat us. We knew they were a team we’d have to beat,” Sharp said. “Scouted them in person in December and January and February. We had a lot of film on them and we prepared hard for them, played them tough, but they were a good team and were able to beat us.”