Mehki Hubbard is two-thirds Superman and one-third KryptoNate.
As in Nate Robinson, the 5-foot-9, three-time NBA Slam Dunk champion and former Nuggets point guard.
“I’m short, shorter than everybody, so no one expects me to jump,” the Mesa Ridge senior said with a chuckle after he and his teammates smothered Dakota Ridge 65-55 in the Class 5A Great 8 on Thursday afternoon at Denver Coliseum. “I catch the top of people by surprise.”
Midway through the second quarter of the quarterfinal, he caught the Eagles’ Ethan Berninger flat-footed. The Dakota Ridge forward had set his feet under the bucket, bracing for contact, but had a great look at a layup. Only he never saw Hubbard coming, as the senior flew in from out of nowhere to swat the shot away.
Did we mention Berninger is 6-4?
“(Happens) all the time,” laughed Mesa Ridge star Bryce Riehl, who poured in a game-high 25 on 10-for-11 shooting and was a perfect 5-for-5 from beyond the arc. “He bounces out of the gym. It’s crazy, especially for how small he is.”
Equally crazy? The Grizzlies’ defense. Dakota Ridge misfired on 12 of its first 17 shots and connected on just 18 of 43 attempts (41.9%) for the afternoon while turning it over 17 times — and six of those giveaways were Riehl steals.
“I think it was Bryce, after the third or fourth practice they’d been with me, (he) said, ‘Coach, you really love defense, don’t you?’” recalled Mesa coach Joel Babbitt, whose second-seeded Grizzlies improved to 26-0. “And I’m like, ‘Yeah.’ And I’m like, ‘You guys are going to love it too.’ And within that first month, they started saying it out loud. They’re like, ‘I love defense, Coach.’”
It shows.
The Grizzlies take personal offense to somebody trying to run a half-court offense in front of them. Hands are always up. Players are always talking. Balls are always being slapped.
PONK!
From out of an opposing player’s mitts …
PONK!
… or being deflected, mid-flight, to who knows where.
PONK!
“I think defense is what makes us (strong),” said Hubbard, who finished with six points and three assists to go along with his shocking stuff. “We’ve lived by the philosophy of, ‘If we score and they don’t score, we’re gonna win games.’ So we take a lot of pride in our defense.”
Hubbard was asked: Do you know how many times somebody’s scored more than 50 points on you guys?
He pondered for a second.
“Two?” he replied. “Maybe three.”
Close. Just six.
It’s small consolation for the Eagles (21-5), who were paced by Alex Rodriguez’s 15 points and Berninger’s 11, but they’re just the fifth program this season to put up more than 50 points on Mesa Ridge, which came into the week allowing only 41.28 points per tilt.
“Yeah, we don’t like when people let people get over 50,” Hubbard continued. “We like to keep teams in single-digit-scoring quarters. That’s our favorite thing to do.”
