If one were to take a poll of high-school basketball players across the province, you’d bee hard-pressed to find three players more familiar with each other than Hunter Hughes, Dominic Clayton and Mathew Andreou.
The trio – “Our Big Three,” coach Steve Anderson calls them – first played together on Southridge’s Grade 5/6 team, and have been teammates ever since.
In fact, the three of them have been together so long that they remember a time when the six-foot-eight Hughes – now one of the province’s most dominant players – was far from a monster on the court. And though he towers over most other high-school players, and is a half-foot taller now than his two teammates, it wasn’t that long ago that Clayton, not Hughes, was the big man on campus.
“Back then, in Grade 7, I was the big man,” Clayton laughed. “But then he grew.”
Hughes’ growth spurt as he hit high school coincided with improved hoops skills – something he said came as a result of practice, and plenty of it.
“I was bad – really bad – probably until about Grade 8,” Hughes said. “But I just really enjoyed playing so I kept at it, and I improved.”
While it’s hard to imagine Hughes as being a poor player, even his longtime coach admits that, back then, it wasn’t that much of a stretch.
“You know what, I don’t think Hunter was actually overstating things all that much,” Anderson laughed. “He was very, very mediocre as a player back then, but he’s probably taken one of the biggest leaps of any player I’ve actually ever seen. He’s very athletic and he’s gotten better every single year.”
Hughes has garnered a lot of the headlines this season, and rightfully so, considering some of the numbers he’s put up. For example, in the Storm’s early-season upset win at the Tsumura Invitational – in which the Storm, in their first season at the AAA level, knocked off quad-A competition – Hughes was named tournament MVP after a 42-point, 21-rebound performance in the final game.
But despite leading the team in scoring, Anderson is quick to point out it’s been the play of all three which has helped the Storm to a No. 3 overall ranking in the province.
A good example came late last month, in a game against Vancouver College, he said.
“At the beginning, they were double-teaming Hunter – and when he got the ball, even tripling him. So Dom and Mat scored about 18 or 20 points in that first quarter, and Vancouver couldn’t do that anymore,” he explained.
“That’s what having these guys does – it keeps teams from focusing on just one guy.
“When they’re all rolling, we’re one of the best teams around.”
Andreou said their familiarity with each other has been a huge help on the court.
“It’s helpful, having played together so long. It’s all about knowing where the other guys are on the court, or what they’re going to do,” he said.
“And it’s not just the three of us. We have a really deep bench, so we have a lot of different guys who can contribute for us.”
In addition to being a talented bunch, they’re also one of the closest-knit teams Anderson has coached. That camaraderie comes naturally, by virtue of playing together for so long.
“We consider ourselves one big basketball family, and we look out for each other,” he said. “That’s what makes it so cool with these three guys – they’ve been together for so long and are now having this kind of success.”
The uniqueness of their situation is not lost on the three seniors, either.
“It’s nice just to be going to practice, going to games every day with your best friends,” Hughes said. “Everything else we get out of it is just a bonus.”
With the season heading into the stretch run, the Storm would love nothing more than to cap their inaugural AAA season with a provincial championship. And beyond that, Hughes, Clayton and Andreou all have college hoops aspirations.
As the season has progressed, all three have received interest from university coaches.
“It doesn’t surprise me at all. For all three of them, their skills are very high and their basketball IQs are very high. It’s easy for me to see how they’ll translate to the college level, and I think they all have fantastic upside,” said Anderson, a former hoops star at Simon Fraser University.
“I would not be at all surprised if they move on to become all-stars within their conferences, no matter where they end up playing.”
While Hughes is a noted scorer and rebounder, Clayton and Andreou are both lauded for their shooting and passing abilities, Anderson said.
“They all have their assets. One of the biggest things Mat does well is he can shoot the pull-up jump shot from that middle area – not quite taking the ball to the rim, but not from three-point (territory) and that can be very hard to defend.
“And Dom is very strong, very aggressive, and one of the hardest workers I’ve ever coached. I’d say his biggest asset is that he doesn’t have to score a ton of points to dominate a game. There’s very few people who you can say that about. It’s what sets him apart.
“One university coach told me that he hasn’t seen a player at the high-school level enjoy passing and enjoy setting guys up as much as Dom seems to.”
And though it is a possibility that all three could end up at the same university, the friends are also preparing for the idea that they could be rivals, rather than teammates, a year from now.
“I haven’t really ever gone against these guys, except in practice. Once, I played against Mat in a summer league, but that was it,” said Clayton.
But rather than worry about their college hoops futures now, the trio is instead just trying to enjoy their final season in Southridge colours, hoping to add one more banner to the gym’s walls.
“Its’ been really awesome just knowing these guys since kindergarten, and then early on, finding something in basketball that we all really love,” Clayton said.
“Now, in our final season, it’s just awesome to still be playing together.”
