Boys 4A tournament: Super seniors could lead Franklin, Mead to final 4A showdown

The wins kept piling up, one blowout victory on top of another, yet Glenn Williams never gave in to the talk. All of it was about the future. And Williams, the fifth-year boys basketball coach at Spokane's Mead High School, wanted his players to stay focused on the present.

Even now, with the season reduced to one final, pressure-packed week, the subject of perfection has yet to be broached.

"We haven't talked about being unbeaten all year," Williams said. "We emphasize we only have the present moment."

Now, the unspoken ambition has become the expressed goal for the second-ranked Panthers (25-0), who need four more victories to cap a perfect season and claim the school's first boys basketball championship at the Class 4A state tournament, which opens today at the Tacoma Dome.

Standing in their way is top-ranked Franklin (21-2) in the other half of the bracket. But the meeting that many expect can't happen until Saturday.

Don't expect the Panthers to get caught looking ahead. They will maintain their usual daily focus, Williams said, which for now means concentrating on Federal Way (17-9) and a 5 p.m., first-round game today.

"Our goal was to get to state, our goal was to win state," said Williams, adding that the team has kept a giant flow chart of the minutes remaining in the season taped to a wall in the locker room.

The chart reminds them how fleeting their time is together, reminds them to cherish every moment.

"We understand that (goal) has to be minute-by-minute, second-by-second, possession-by-possession," Williams said.

If the tournament goes as many are predicting, Saturday night's title game could feature a classic showdown between East and West, Spokane and Seattle.

Franklin, like Mead, has a lengthy winning streak, strong senior leadership and a superstar player who can take over a game.

The Quakers, winners of 16 straight, will play ninth-ranked Bethel (21-4) at 9 this morning.

Franklin is led by guard Aaron Brooks, a 6-foot senior who two weeks ago became just the fifth player from Washington to earn a selection to the McDonald's All-American Game. He averages 23.5 points and 7.5 assists and will play next year at Oregon.

"We didn't know what to do with him," said Central Valley Coach Rick Sloan, whose squad is the only one in the 16-team field to have played both Franklin and Mead this year. "He's tough. He finishes more like a 6-3 guy."

Morrison is diabetic and must pay close attention to his blood sugar level. He checks it during timeouts, does a few quick calculations and depending on the numbers, takes an insulin injection.

"We're like a M.A.S.H. unit over there sometimes," Williams said. "I can't praise the kid enough for the way he handles that."

Morrison, the son of a coach, can score inside and out. His high-release jump shot resembles that of former Celtics' star Larry Bird, his basketball idol.

"He can just flat-out take a game over," Sloan said. "He's the best offensive player in high school that I've seen."

Point guard Bryan Williams (11.9 ppg, 6.0 apg), the coach's son, also is a talented player. Mead seniors Justin Dobson, Eric Fink and Matt Jorgensen — who will play golf at Oregon next year — round out the starting lineup.

Mead has beaten its opponents by an average of 29.6 points, but the Panthers remain relatively unknown on this side of the Cascades. They haven't won a state-tournament game since 1989 and went two-and-out last year.

That streak is expected to end today.

Walla Walla Coach Jim Thacker — whose 1999 Blue Devils remain the last team from Eastern Washington to win a big-school, boys basketball title — said the Panthers have as good a shot as any to take home the first-place trophy.

"That '99 team that won the state tournament was pretty good," Thacker said. "And I think this team might be better."

Williams, an English teacher, is sticking with his philosophical approach.

"It's done in a week. No matter what happens, it's over," he said. "Did we enjoy the journey? That's what I want the kids to focus on."

Matt Peterson: 206-515-5536 or mpeterson@seattletimes.com.