Final Four preview: Arizona boys basketball teams set to tip off with title game on the line

By Jacob Seliga

Lead Writer

It’s officially the final week of the season. Starting Monday night, the 4A Conference will tip off the semifinals, with the 5A through Open Division continuing through Wednesday.

Sixteen teams remain alive to win their respective championships. And by the end of Wednesday night, just eight will have the ability to win a state championship.

With the semifinals here, below is the go-to guide for everything heading into the semifinals as well as my predictions to win each game. 

4A Conference 

No. 8 Dysart at No. 4 Deer Valley

No. 3 St Mary’s at No. 2 Prescott

Based on each team’s play in the second half of the season, these are the four best teams in the 4A Conference remaining as the season reaches its final chapters.

Dysart is in the best position the program has been in in quite some time. Behind the trio of Lamar Anderson, Santiago Leyva and Caleb Williams, the Demons have bullied teams with their length and physical play. The trio has averaged a combined 26 rebounds per game and six steals per contest.

Deer Valley is the defending 4A champion and has hit its stride after suffering a loss to Paradise Honors in January. The Skyhawks nearly knocked off Basha and rolled past Cholla and Cactus Shadows early in the 4A bracket. 

The duo of twin brothers Sergio and Simon Gonzales have been pests on the court, pressing the opposing team’s top guards with physical play and generating quick transition baskets.

St Mary’s has gotten better as the season has gone on with a brutal non-region schedule coupled with playing in the best region in the 4A Conference. That has helped prepare the Knights for their run so far. 

Six-foot-11 sophomore Cameron Williams has become a force on the wing as his teammates Caspian Jones and Carter Bagley have jumped out the gym and dominated opponents inside with their athleticism.

Prescott, behind the best player in the conference and one of the best in the state, has been tested throughout the postseason so far. Brophy knocked the Badgers off at the buzzer in the open division, Mesquite gave them a scare in round one, and ALA Gilbert-North took them to overtime on Friday in the quarterfinals.

 But with the senior duo of guard Uriah Tenette and 6’10” post Zane Gaul, the 1-2 punch of the Badgers can beat anyone on any night. 

5A Conference

No. 9 Carl Hayden at No. 4 Central

No. 3 Mountain Pointe at No. 2 Canyon View

The cardiac Falcons have rolled into the semifinals fresh off back-to-back tight road upsets, including a victory over top-seeded Willow Canyon on Friday night. It has been a team effort to get to this point with different players stepping up. 

Whether it’s Tion Wright, Prince Cash or Joseph Lindsay, whose six three pointers were the difference in the quarterfinals, the Falcons, when they’re playing at their best, can win the 5A.

Central, since the moment transfer John Mattingly became eligible, has been gunning for the opportunity to play for a state championship. The Bobcats nearly upset No. 5 O’Connor in the Open Division and rolled through Paradise Valley and Catalina Foothills in the first two rounds with relative ease.

The trio of Mattingly, his brother Grant and Dom Rojas command most of the attention. But the X-Factor is Eric Butler who averages nearly a double-double with 9.6 points and 9.6 rebounds per game. 

Mountain Pointe, after a few down years for the program’s standard, has returned to a familiar place, the semifinals. This time around however unlike previous teams that mostly relied on experience to make runs, it has been the youth movement helping lead the way for the Pride. 

Marcus Isaac and Justin Kimbrough have stepped into big roles as freshmen with both picking up Division I offers already. They join seniors Kaden Gollhuir and Mark Wiltshire as the unit that has been tested since the beginning of the season. 

One of the presumptive favorites since the beginning of the season enters the semifinals as the favorite to win the 5A conference. Canyon View has rolled through almost every team on its schedule until this point while battling through injuries. 

However, star guards DeNali McNeal is the healthiest he’s been and Quincy Kirk is close to 100% for the first time in a few weeks as the fast paced defensive oriented lineup continues to press teams out the gym while spreading the wealth throughout their entire lineup. 

6A Conference 

No. 5 Brophy at No. 1 Highland

No. 11 Mesa at No. 2 Liberty

Brophy Prep, for the first time in a while, entered a postseason with little to no expectations but has shown its championship pedigree as it has rolled to the semifinals after battling against Apollo and West Point. 

The Broncos were battling the injury bug for most of the season but are the healthiest they’ve been. The duo of Ryan Burbach and Daylen Sharper has led the way all season for Brophy and has elevated their game with the postseason pressure. 

The fighting Zach Alvira’s (just to see if you read it all Zach -- Zach here, I read it) early in the season appeared as a team that may not even have a home game in the play-in round much less the top seed in the 6A bracket, is now one win away from the championship. 

But that’s Todd Fazio and the culture of his program, being able to fight through all adversity to reach the ultimate prize just two years removed from its last championship. 

The “core four” of Ty and Grady Crandall as well as Michael Johnson and Nick Reber have improved together throughout the season and are a force right now. 

The road warriors reside at Mesa High School. After going to Tucson round one, the Jackrabbits lucked into a home game against No. 14 Pinnacle and easily took care of Pioneers to position themselves one win away from the championship game. 

After an injury to John Petersen, Jakyi Miles has stepped up and appears to have the Freshman of the Year award locked up as he’s carried the Jackrabbits to their best playoff run since winning a state championship in 2016.

After an up-and-down second-half of the season, few expected Liberty, the defending 6A champion to return to the semifinals. Yet here the Lions are, and in many ways have found new life since losing to Williams Field in the first round of the Open Division. 

The difference between the team that was close to .500 after Christmas break and the team that has gone on this run is their balance. TJ Harris, Stephan Miller, Jackson and Jacob Hunter have stepped up and played as a unit and the team basketball play has them one win away from being able to defend its championship. 

Open Division

No. 5 O’Connor vs No. 1 Perry

No. 2 Sunnyslope vs No. 3 Millennium 

Back in November, O’Connor appeared as the most likely team to knock off the Perry Pumas four-peat opportunity following a victory over Millennium at home. But since then, the Eagles have been overlooked after close losses to Sunnyslope and Boulder Creek.  

In the postseason, O’Connor has adjusted to the play after getting back to full health and knocking off Central, rolling through Higley and going on the road to defeat No. 4 Basha in the quarterfinals.

The size and the length of the Eagles lineup has been key to their success as Rylan Parsley, Colton Watson, Michael Simcoe, John Simcoe and Ryker Hughes all are 6-foot-6 or taller. 

Their X-Factor, however, is Tayvion Wilson. When Wilson is playing his best offensively, the Eagles may be the best team in the bracket and as the season reaches its end his ability to run the offense will be key to whether or not a championship ends up in North Phoenix.

Up until a week ago, it appeared to be a foregone conclusion that the Perry Pumas were likely to win their fourth consecutive championship. 

Then came the most shocking injury in Arizona high school basketball history as Koa Peat suffered a broken hand in practice, an injury that’ll likely keep him out through the championship if the Pumas make it there. 

But stepping up in his absence was the underrated De’Andre Harrison, who dropped 33 points in Perry’s quarterfinal victory over Ironwood. 

What makes Perry so dangerous is that, in spite of losing Peat, the defense may still be the best in the state as the Pumas are led by potential Defensive Player of the Year NoNo Brown, sophomore wing Bruce Branch III and Trey McKinney, who stepped up with 11 rebounds in the quarterfinals. 

Two words could sum up the Sunnyslope team every year regardless of who is on the team: Discipline and Toughness. The two staples of the Vikings program. 

In spite of being doubted more than they’ve been in recent years, the Vikings return to the semifinals of the Open Division for the second time in three years led by a starting five that has only gotten better as the year has gone on. 

Sophomore Darius Wabbington has been the key as his defensive presence coupled with his rebounding ability has allowed Nash Parmley, Kade Snyder, Delton Prescott and Rider Portela to play on the perimeter and disrupt opposing guards and force quick turnovers into even quicker baskets.

Last season, Millennium walked into the locker room at Veterans Memorial Coliseum at halftime and appeared to be on its way to their first open division championship. 

After falling short on that night one year ago, the Tigers have returned with vengeance on their mind one win away from getting a second chance at life. After an early season loss to O’Connor, many doubted the Tigers ability to get this deep in the postseason yet here they are led by the superstar duo of Cameron Holmes and Kingston Tosi.

But it has been players such as J.T. Amundsen, Damian Castro, Adrian Higuera and Quincy Everson who have stepped up at different points of both the regular season and throughout the playoff run to get past rival Canyon View and Notre Dame Prep in the semifinals.