At the holiday break for Tucson's high school basketball teams, Sahuaro coach Jim Henry, at 11-1, and Cholla's Masai Dean, at 9-1, moved to the top in Southern Arizona, which is no surprise.
Henry and Dean are closing in on some historic company. Dean won his 240th game at Cholla a week ago, a testament to his superb work in 15 seasons at a school not typically considered a top sports location. Henry last week won his 289th game at Sahuaro, which puts him within range of Tucson's most successful boys prep basketball coaches.
Sahuaro’s head coach Jim Henry has some questions during a flurry in the third quarter of the Cougars’ overtime loss to Deer Valley in the Arizona Class 4A boys basketball state championship game at Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix in 2024.
It's unlikely Dean or Henry will coach long enough to challenge Sahuaro Hall of Famer Dick McConnell's 774 career victories, or the 512 games won by Rincon/University's Rich Utter, who retired last year. But Dean and Henry are within range of Brian Peabody's 442 career victories at Salpointe, Green Fields and Ironwood Ridge, Jim Ferguson's 370 wins at Santa Rita, the 395 wins of Tucson High's Bud Doolen, Dan Huff's 327 wins at CDO and the estimated 450 wins by Amphitheater's George Genung.
Tucson has an impressive history of high school basketball coaches, which is evident when you look at the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame inductees, including Flowing Wells' Ed Nymeyer, Rincon's Dick King, Pueblo's Roland LaVetter, Cholla's Paul Dull and Rincon's Bill Mehle.
Dean and Henry are headed in the same direction.
