BATTLE GROUND — Willie Bratcher will knock down that shot if he is left open.
Honestly, he can, and he will.
He just does not really want to shoot the ball.
Not his style.
“I can pump up my teammates by giving them a good pass,” Bratcher said. “It gives me joy to see them do well. I enjoy it more than when I score.”
There is much joy in Battle Ground these days.
The Tigers, after years of struggles, are in first place in the Class 4A Greater St. Helens League. A senior-dominated team, the Tigers share the scoring duties with one another — eight players have reached double figures in games this season — and they all take a cue from their point guard.
Bratcher already owns two school records for assists and is closing in on a third.
“Willie is a kid we’re begging to shoot it more,” Battle Ground coach Andy Schoonover said. “He’ll shoot when he’s open, but he loves making that extra pass.”
The pass-first, pass-second, pass-third, and shoot-only-when-necessary point guards are pretty much a part of basketball’s history.
It is rare enough in present-day basketball to find a player with that mentality, but it takes more than a desire to set up teammates. It also takes time and practice to get it right.
That happens to be a big advantage with this group.
This is the third year on varsity for five of the Tigers, including Bratcher. Many of the seniors have been with one another longer than that, playing together in youth ball.
“Chemistry,” Seth Belknap called it. “We all just know what we want from each other.”
After winning three games as sophomores, then moving to .500 last season, today’s Tigers know exactly what they want. A league championship is the first goal. Battle Ground is 13-2 overall and 7-1 in the 4A GSHL.
“We all stuck with it. We didn’t give up,” Belknap said. “We knew if we kept working at it, we’d get better.”
The Tigers agree that this season’s success is all the sweeter because of what they endured a couple of years ago.
“After losing so bad, you learn you don’t like to lose,” Bratcher said. “So you put in the hard work. It’s amazing, from where we started until now. It’s special to watch, it’s special to be a part of. It’s a good atmosphere, winning.”
It starts with unselfish play.
Bratcher set the 20-game regular-season team record for assists last year with 119. He has 241 assists in his regular-season career through last week’s games, another Battle Ground mark.
He is closing in on the all-time career mark, which includes playoff games. Bratcher is 36 assists behind Trevor Person, who excelled at Battle Ground in the early 2000s and now is the head coach at Heritage.
Bratcher has missed on more than a few assist opportunities when his teammates who he passed to opted to pass to another open teammate.
Belknap said other players see Bratcher making the extra pass, and that leads to more passing. All of the Tigers know they will eventually get their shots.
Still, the art of the assist is more than just making a pass in the offense and hoping a teammate knocks down the shot.
“I want to hit them where they like it,” Bratcher said.
That means placing the ball in the perfect spot for the shooter so the shooter does not have to make any extra adjustments with the ball. A high pass, for example, will mess with the timing of a jump shot. A low pass might give the defense that split second of extra time to close a gap, to defend the shooter.
There is no one perfect spot to pass the ball to every player, who come in different sizes and different abilities.
“Everybody’s different,” Bratcher said. “You just gotta learn.”
That’s the advantage of all those years together on the court.
“We’re like a machine,” Bratcher said. “We’re all thinking, seeing the court as one, kind of.”
The point guard leads with that vision. Willie Bratcher’s sees passing lanes and open teammates.
Together, the Battle Ground Tigers are seeing a lot of victories.
