MaxPreps 2013 National Boys Basketball Coach of the Year: Quincy Lewis

Some coaches like to keep the goals for their team simple and take them step-by-step: win the league, win the section or region — hopefully even win the state title.

But when head coach Quincy Lewis gathered the Lone Peak (Highland, Utah) boys basketball team together in August, he threw down the loftiest of team goals.

Win the national championship.

"It's not something that we broadcast to everybody. We kind of kept it within our team," said Lewis. "But the very first day that we came back to school in August, that's what we talked about. I think by having that as our goal and our focus, it helped us keep our focus throughout the entire season."

With a dominating 26-1 season, the Knights accomplished their goal and were named the MaxPreps 2013 Xcellent 25 National Champions. And for his efforts in harnessing and capitalizing on his team's talent, Lewis has been named the MaxPreps 2013 National Boys Basketball Coach of the Year.

"It's such an honor to be recognized by MaxPreps," said Lewis. "We all appreciate what (MaxPreps does) for high school sports, so being named national champions and Coach of the Year is quite an honor."

The Knights are the first team from Utah to be recognized as national champions by MaxPreps in any sport.

"It's been absolutely great for our state," said Lewis. "Our governor had us up to the capitol building and proclaimed March 8 Lone Peak Basketball Day, so to say it's been big in the state of Utah is an understatement.

"I think it shows what's possible if you put a lot of work into it and have the right combination."

To beat out the national competition, not only did the Knights have to continue to dominate in-state opponents, but they would also have to play an impressive schedule against teams from out-of-state — and win.

"We scheduled four out-of-state trips this year, which is by far the most that we've done — the most we've ever done is two," said Lewis. "But we needed to be challenged with different types of challenges than we were used to to keep our focus and maybe a little bit of our interest."

Needless to say the team rose to the challenge, starting with wins over eventual Illinois 4A semifinalist Proviso East (Maywood) and Colorado 5A runner-up Denver East in December.

Next up was the City of Palms Classic in Fort Myers, Fla., where Lone Peak recorded impressive wins over Callaway (Jackson, Miss.), Chester (Pa.) and Southwind (Memphis, Tenn.). The win over Chester ended a 61-game win streak for the Keystone State powerhouse.

The team's only loss came in the City of Palms final to national power and final Academy No. 1 Montverde Academy. For a team unaccustomed to losing, Lewis kept his postgame words direct.

"The first thing you say is that we lost to a good team and they deserved it. They played better than us," he said. "Secondly, you look at it and say, 'What can we take from this game to get better?' ... At that point it was just about us getting better and maybe still having a shot to win the national championship."

The team responded immediately.

After a win over eventual North Carolina private school state champ Wesleyan Christian Academy (High Point), the Knights recorded perhaps the most impressive win on their 2012-13 resume — a 35-point blowout of Aaron Gordon and California Open Division runner-up Archbishop Mitty (San Jose).

After that it was back to Utah, where in-state competition was all that stood between Lone Peak and a national title. For a team that at that point was riding a 13-game winning streak against Utah opponents, most considered a state title a mere formality — which made Lewis fearful of a possible let-down.

"In the fall we set a goal to win the national championship," he said. "We thought that it was possible and so whenever we're playing an in-state game our conversation was, 'We're playing for the national championship tonight,' because you lose one in-state game and it's over."

The players, sparked by senior leaders Nick Emery, Talon Shumway, Connor Toolson, Braden Miles and Eric Mika, kept that focus and plowed through the rest of the regular season and the Utah state playoffs, winning the school's fifth Class 5A state title in six years.

A home-grown group that had been playing together for a long time, most players on the Lone Peak squad live no more than a mile or two from campus.

"It's helped us in putting it together because they're all good friends with each other," said Lewis. "But I'm not going to sit here and say you don't have to work at it each day. It's almost a day-to-day conversation when you have guys as talented as we have to remember that we need to play together and we need to stay grounded."

Part of what allowed the kids to buy in was the player-friendly offensive style that Lewis employs. The Knights averaged 72.7 points per game and routinely scored in the 80s and 90s.

"This is 10 years I've coached now at Lone Peak and we always play up-tempo," said Lewis. "I just think it's more fun to play that way, but it's also more efficient in this day and age with all the scouting and information there is to learn about other teams. The last thing you want to do is play against a set defense. So we like to run."

Lewis hopes that his system will allow Lone Peak to continue its success despite the departure of a unique and inspiring senior class.

"Obviously you lose some real talented guys," he said. "But we do return T.J. Haws (Ranked No. 50 in the Class of 2014 by MaxPreps). We return him along with two key guys who came off the bench for us. We're going to be a little better than people might think."

One thing's for sure: Lewis is not going to sit on his national title and Coach of the Year honors for long.

"If you don't look at each offseason as an opportunity to improve yourself as a coach through clinics or tapes or talking to other people, then you're never going to be the kind of coach that you hope to be," he said.