Undefeated Findlay ranked No. 2, but rodent has its number

By Rob Miech

Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2008 | 2:09 a.m.

Sam Morris

Findlay head coach Michael Peck grimaces at a call during a game with Summit Prep last season.

Findlay College Prep has dispatched all nine of its basketball opponents this season and is ranked second in the latest USA Today Super 25 national high school poll.

Elite Division-I offers await many of those players.

But one foe has the Pilots shaking in their high-top Nikes lately and, likely, losing some sleep.

Their nemesis doesn’t play in-your-face defense, shoot 3-pointers like Larry Bird or dunk from the wings like Michael Jordan, either.

In fact, he’s never even dribbled a basketball.

Or is it a she?

“The funny thing is, we’re all big but everybody on our team is scared of that little mouse,” said star guard Avery Bradley, who will play at Texas next season. “Everybody! I mean, we see him in class and we all hop on our desks.”

At a recent practice, the Pilots entered the gym at the Henderson International School, the premier prep school with which Findlay is affiliated, and delicately placed their backpacks in a corner.

They tiptoed around the area.

Practice started, and several Pilots kept checking the corner, kept angling over that way just to make sure everything was OK and nothing had disappeared.

“We might be big, but … I jumped on a table!” said unsigned high-flying senior forward Victor Rudd.

“Like Avery said, he’s seen it in running through our clothes,” said junior guard Cory Joseph.

D.J. Richardson, the standout guard who will play at Illinois next fall, becomes the most rattled when the mouse twitches its whiskers.

At a U.S. government class that Richardson, Bradley, Rudd and center Carlos Lopez attend, the mouse first roared.

“I was the first one to hop up on the top of my desk,” Richardson said. “I saw the first one. It ran in the weight room. I yelled ‘Mouse! Mouse! Mouse!’”

“He stopped the whole practice,” Rudd said.

Only Hargrave Military Academy and the member of Mus musculus, the common house mouse, have gotten the better of Findlay over the past two seasons.

In March, the Pilots’ second season ended at 32-1 when they lost to Hargrave by two points in the National Prep Championship in the Bronx, N.Y.

When Findlay improved to 30-0 with a victory in its final regular-season game before flying to New York, coach Mike Peck didn’t want to boast about his team’s achievements.

“Pride comes before destruction,” he said.

What about being 41-1 as the pilot of the Pilots?

Peck laughed.

“When you have good players … ” he said. “One thing we try to do is keep them fresh, so we don’t wear them out. And two, to their credit, they’ve embraced our philosophy.

“When talent plays hard, you’ll have success.”

Cliff Findlay, the automobile magnate and former UNLV center who started the Findlay Prep program three years ago, has turned down scores of interview requests by the Sun over the past year.

Monday morning, he politely declined again, saying he wants to remain in the shadows, that the hoops team is all about Peck, assistant coach Todd Simon and the players.

Peck tries to play all nine players in every game. Bradley, with averages of 22.3 points, 5.6 rebounds, 3.2 steals and 2.9 assists, is the star. He also shoots 3-pointers at a 70.6-percent clip.

But he’s always quick to talk about the team after games.

Rudd, averaging 15 points and 10.2 boards, has UNLV among several schools interested in signing him.

He noticed Rebels coach Lon Kruger at Findlay’s recent victory over Stoneridge Prep.

“Yeah, I saw him before the game,” Rudd said. “He nodded at me. It wasn’t really a big deal. I’ve played in games with a lot of college head coaches in the gym. You get used to it.”

Richardson scores 12.2 a game. Joseph averages 10 points and nearly four assists. No Pilot smiles as much as the Toronto native.

“My dad and mom have always told me to smile, ever since I came up,” Joseph said. “Smile and be happy, my mom said, when you’re out there. This is the game I love. I’m always happy.”

Peck would have a 10th player, in a spot vacated when Clarence Trent left before the season, but a big man from Nigeria has had visa issues.

The Pilots, who are outscoring their opponents 89-55, will host their own Rock Holiday Classic this weekend.

Findlay plays South Miami (Fla.) Senior High at 7 p.m. Saturday in the Henderson International gym. The eight-team tournament continues Dec. 29 and 30.

Mater Dei leads the USA Today rankings, and Joseph said it would be a dream matchup to play the Monarchs in the final of the eight-team national prep championship tournament in the spring in Washington, D.C.

“We don’t talk about the USA Today poll,” Peck said. “We don’t bring it up. They don’t bring it up. I’m OK with it. They might talk to their friends and talk a little mess. They can do that. They’ve earned it.”

Most likely, Peck figured, his players don’t exactly bring up that major topic when they talk with those friends.

Mickey. Or is it Minnie?

“My thing is, that mouse might get you to jump a little bit, but their attention was so consumed by it,” Peck said. “I was getting irritated. All right, get past it. The novelty has worn off.

“That little guy is going to do what he wants to do. None of you are going to stop him. But it was a distraction, an outlet during exam week.”

Leave it to a little light-brown rodent to be more of a pest to Findlay on a basketball court than almost every team it’s played over the past two seasons.