Devils ranked No. 1 by AP
McDonald High School basketball coach Jeff Rasile admits he’s a realist, but he’s also OK with taking a compliment.
His Blue Devils, who are 12-0, are the No. 1-ranked Division IV team in the Associated Press boys state basketball poll, which was released Monday. It marked the first time in school history that McDonald earned such a distinction.
Rasile didn’t petition the Ohio High School Athletic Association to conclude the season Monday, but if that would have happened, he was OK with it.
“Can we end it now?,” he joked. “If we can end it now, we’ll take that (state championship trophy).”
Alas, there are about two months to go before the state basketball tournament is played in Columbus, so Rasile and the Blue Devils are probably going to have to earn a title the hard way.
They’re OK with that, too.
“From our end, we just want to win every game we can,” said Rasile, who added that he doesn’t “put much stock” into the rankings. “We recognize that there are some Division IV schools in Ohio, especially in the Cleveland area, that play a Division I schedule, so they’re going to lose games. We would be a serious underdog to some of those teams, and we know that. All we can do is control what’s on our schedule, and we have a huge test (tonight.)”
Top-ranked McDonald plays fellow unbeaten South Range (13-0), which is ranked 16th in Division III, tonight in North Lima. Other area teams that are ranked are LaBrae, which also is undefeated at 11-0 and is rated No. 2 in Division III for the second consecutive week, along with Bristol and John F. Kennedy, which are tied for 10th in Division IV. Boardman (9-2) is 14th in Division I.
The Blue Devils were the No. 2 team last week, but top-ranked Fort Loramie lost to Versailles one week ago and dropped to No. 5 in the rankings.
Rasile continued to emphasize that the rankings mean next to nothing to him and his players, but he does like the current makeup of his team, which has scored more than 100 points on a couple of occasions this year.
The 13-year veteran has taken multiple teams to the regional tournament and once led the Blue Devils to three-straight undefeated seasons (two that were ranked second in the state, McDonald’s previous highest ranking), but this year’s group possesses a different identity.
“We’ve had some good teams, so it’s hard to gauge the teams,” said Rasile of comparing this year to past seasons. “Offensively, this is one of our better teams that we’ve had. Everybody can fill a nice role on our team. I don’t think we’re as good defensively as we were in the past on some of those undefeated teams. Those three years in a row where we went undefeated I thought we were better defensively, but we weren’t quite as good offensively. This is probably our best shooting team that we’ve had.”
The Blue Devils might discover if they’re deserving of the high praise tonight.
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