Michael Lev: Eric Langford and his undersized Tucson High team proving to be giant killers

His team had just completed an epic second-half comeback to cement a historic victory, and Tucson High School boys basketball coach Eric Langford was overcome with emotion.

Moments after the Badgers rallied to defeat Queen Creek Casteel 58-51 in the first round of the Open Division playoffs Wednesday night, Langford was hunched over in a corner of the THS gym. His hands were on his knees. Perspiration beaded off his shaved head. Players and supporters came by to congratulate and comfort him.

“It’s my alma mater,” Langford said a few minutes later. “I have blood, sweat and tears on this same floor.”

The typically scrappy win over Casteel was deeply meaningful for Langford, a star player for the Badgers in the late 1980s and early ‘90s. He had experienced the pain of losing a tight playoff game as both a player and a coach.

As a senior, Langford was part of a team that blew a big halftime lead in a loss to Mesa Mountain View. Each of the past two seasons, the Badgers were eliminated by one-point margins.

“I’ve been here four years,” Langford said. “The last two years we lost by one point. We just gotta get the monkey off our back. And tonight we did it.”

Now they’ll try to do it again. Tucson High, the No. 14 seed, is set to visit No. 3 seed Phoenix Sunnyslope in the second round Friday. It isn’t a do-or-die game in the strictest sense; if the Badgers were to fall, they’d be placed in the 6A playoffs, which begin next Wednesday.

But Langford doesn’t see it that way and doesn’t want his players to either. They view themselves as giant killers.

Although Tucson was the higher seed and has only one loss this season — by one point in overtime at Salpointe Catholic — the Arizona Republic picked No. 19 Casteel to win their first-round matchup. If you just looked at the teams getting off the bus, you could understand why.

Four of the Colts’ starters are listed at 6-foot-4 or taller. Three are at least 6-5, including 6-7 big Kaelum Brown. None is shorter than 6-2.

The tallest player on the Badgers’ roster is 6-4 sophomore Malaki Cunningham-Hiadzi. Half their players are under 6 feet, including starting guards Adam Bernal and Adam Armadillo, both listed at 5-7.

“Height doesn’t really matter, to be honest,” 5-10 junior guard Julio Marquez said. “It’s all about how hard you work.”

Under Langford’s guidance, the Badgers play a frenetic style of basketball. For Tucson’s opponents, it’s 32 Minutes of Hell.

The Badgers press. They poke. They prod. Langford used 12 players Wednesday. They didn’t all score. But they all played in-your-face defense.

“We’re up and down, we’re gritty, we’re tough,” Langford said. “A lot of people see our size, and they underestimate us. But it’s different being pressed all game, 94 feet, for 32 minutes. We just pray that third, fourth quarter, people get tired.”

It’s hard to say whether Casteel got fatigued Wednesday. But Tucson never let up — even when things were looking grim.

The Colts scored the first two baskets and held the lead through the first three quarters. It grew as large as 10 points with about three minutes left in the third.

The comeback began with a pair of buckets by junior wing Quintin Ragland, sandwiching a charge drawn by senior forward Brevin Koch. Marquez’s layup off a steal trimmed the deficit to four points. Tavion Okougbo’s free throw after another forced turnover made it 42-39 at the end of three. Koch’s 3-pointer on the first possession of the fourth tied it.

By this point, the crowd was stomping on the wooden bleachers. Chants of “Defense!” rang through the old gym.

With about 2:45 to play, Ragland stole the ball and made a layup to give Tucson its first lead, 50-49.

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The Badgers were up 52-51 with 55.8 seconds left when Langford called a timeout to set up a possible put-away basket. The players who’d executed the game plan so well appeared to forget that the shot clock had only 16 seconds on it. As it ticked down to two, Bernal had no choice but to fire a 3-pointer from the edge of the midcourt “T” logo.

“We were supposed to run a play, but we didn’t realize there were 16 seconds left,” Bernal said. “I looked up. Five seconds. I gotta shoot it. So I just threw it up.”

The shot hit nothing but net, bumping Tucson’s lead to four and sending the crowd into a frenzy.

“He’s one of our best shooters,” Langford said. “We practice those shots in practice almost every day. I wasn’t surprised it went in. I was just happy.”

The Badgers held on from there. They gathered in a hallway behind their bench for a postgame celebration. Players and assistant coaches doused Langford with water. He wiped his face before speaking to reporters. It was unclear whether he was blotting water, tears or sweat. Probably all of the above.

“This is history, man,” Langford said. “Second year of the Open tournament. We got a home game, and we won it.”

It was something of a lifelong achievement for Langford, the son of Kelly Lanford, a former THS football and track star who later coached at the school and worked in education in Tucson until he retired.

Eric Langford played collegiately at Eastern Arizona College and Grand Canyon, and professionally around the world. He always considered being the Tucson High boys basketball coach his “dream job.” That dream became a reality when THS hired him in June 2020.

Since starting 2-9 during the pandemic-plagued 2020-21 season, Langford’s Badgers have gone 68-12, including 24-1 this season. Most of the players are part of his Hoop To Win club team, enabling them to build chemistry and cohesion year-round.

The Badgers are devoid of All-Stars. But, as Bernal put it, Langford makes them feel like “we’re all stars.”

Entering Wednesday, no one on the team averaged more than 9.4 points. But 10 players averaged at least 5.7.

Eight players scored against Casteel. Ragland led the way with 12.

“It’s a 15-man team,” said Bernal, one of only four seniors on the roster. “There’s no one star player. We’re a team that works together.”

“We all could go one-on-one,” Marquez said. “But Coach wants us to work as a team, because that’s gonna take us far in the playoffs.”

How much further they go remains to be seen. Sunnyslope will be a heavy favorite Friday night. The Vikings have seven players listed at 6-5 or taller, including 6-10 freshman Darius Wabbington, who already has an offer from ASU. They beat Cienega 78-46 Wednesday.

“We don’t care about size,” Langford said. “You’re gonna get a dunk, you’re gonna get a tip-in, you’re gonna get a layup. You have to run back and guard our 3-point shooters. It just is what it is. We’re not going to grow overnight.”

Physically, that might not be the case. But Langford and his program grew up in a way Wednesday night.

“Two years, first round, first round, finally got over the hump,” Bernal said. “It feels amazing.”