Columnist Dean Juipe: Gorman lets history slip away

Dean Juipe

Monday, Feb. 26, 2001 | 10:37 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

Rightly or wrongly, had Bishop Gorman won the state 4A boys basketball championship Friday night in Reno I was going to write today that the Gaels were the finest prep team in Nevada history.

I only saw them play once this season but they were overwhelming.

They had size and tremendous ability. They had five players, including four senior starters, who are headed for Division-I collegiate programs.

They had pizzazz.

Then they lost to Western in the televised state final, and what had been a fantastic season wasn't so much reduced to rubble as it was severely blemished by an untimely defeat.

But the best team in Nevada history can't have an untimely defeat, so kiss the notion of the 2001 Gaels being No. 1 goodbye.

Four points -- that's all that separated this Gorman team from the ultimate accolade. Western's 64-61 victory not only gave the Warriors the state title but it put an end to the belief that the Gaels were unbeatable within their own state.

The net result: Instead of fancifully being talked up as the all-time best, Gorman has to be seen in a less-complimentary light. It can't stake a claim to an honor it appeared to have in its sights all season long.

The Gaels finished 29-3, with the other losses to national powerhouse Oak Hill (Va.) and a perennially tough team from suburban Houston, Sugar Land. Until losing to Western in the fourth meeting between the division adversaries this season, Gorman was undefeated in Nevada and ranked as high as No. 18 by one national prep website, rivals.com.

No disrespect to Western for taking the game with a gritty second-half comeback, but it's almost a shame Gorman didn't win.

The night I saw the Gaels, against Durango at the Thomas & Mack Center, they were so impressive that I began talking to friends and high school authorities on the subject of just what team was the best in Nevada history. Was it one of the Valley teams with Freddie Banks at the helm in the early 1980s that helped make coach Bill Bobier a legend? Or was it a Gorman team I saw play dozens of times in the late '80s that had future NBA center Brian Williams and future Arizona point guard Matt Othick and future Nevada-Reno swingman Kevin Soares in the starting lineup?

Or was it some other team I wasn't familiar with?

There's research to be done but now it has lost its timeliness. It can wait till some other year.

But it could be a long time before another team emerges that has such a wealth of talent. The four Gorman seniors who are headed for college programs are Paul Bania (Navy), Justin Burns (Boise State), Jason Carter (Colorado) and Dinard Taylor (maybe Denver), while junior C.J. Watson is on every recruiter's wish list.

They had a once-in-a-lifetime look to them that prompted thoughts of invincibility.

But then they lost and the knee-jerk reaction is to say everything they had earlier achieved flew out the window.

That isn't quite true, of course, but the one certainty is that they've lost their right to be considered the greatest of the greats and it's something many of us were sorry to see.