The Northwest Conference is among the toughest prep basketball leagues in Washington state, and this year is no exception.
Both the boys and girls standings are especially top-heavy this season. That imbalance — whether by mid-season coincidence or pure, unfettered superiority — makes the upcoming latter stretch of the schedule that much more fascinating.
The girls standings are split nearly in half by contenders and, well, non-contenders. With that in mind, the boys ranks offer a little more intrigue.
Every year, in both the 1A and 2A classifications, the teams that make it out of the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association’s District 1 — encapsulating areas as far north as Blaine and as far south as Mountlake Terrace — make deep runs into state tournaments.
Whatcom County programs triumph over these regions more often than not. This season, that staunch, perennial power may reign even more supreme.
While it’s only mid-season, things are looking bleak for many boys basketball teams in the NWC. For the rest, particularly those at the top, who is the best?
Sehome, Lynden, Lynden Christian, Blaine and Anacortes are all undefeated in league games. Outside of Sehome, which is 7-0, each of the aforementioned teams are 6-0 in NWC contests.
The next best team in the standings is Bellingham, which is currently 3-4 in league games and 5-6 overall. There is not a single team outside the top five that has a .500 win percentage or better in conference games, and that isn’t where the disparities end.
Among those top five teams, the average margin of victory over league opponents is just under 25.8 points per game. The remaining 11 NWC teams are losing to other conference opponents by an average of 11.4 points per game.
This is, of course, temporarily skewed by the lesser teams playing the supreme groups early in the season. Most of the top programs will meet during the latter portion of January. That still will not negate the top-heavy trend we have seen thus far.
The largest discrepancy this season is the most apparent in the middle of the pack. Last year, the next five teams — below the leading five — held an average win percentage of .602 against league opponents. This season, that middle group sits at a .376 average.
What does this mean for those at the top? The league, overall, is more unpredictable.
“You just never know,” said Lynden boys basketball coach Brian Roper. “The Northwest Conference is tough — good coaches, good athletes. We respect everybody we play.”
High school sports present an unending ebb-and-flow in competition. Some schools must enter multi-year rebuilding periods when a large batch of seniors graduate and a young group of players are thrust into action.
Other programs reload every year, playing full seasons with talented bench players who don’t see the court because of upperclassmen’s privilege and talent. Once those seniors are gone, it’s the “next man up” mentality that prevails — a luxury not all schools enjoy.
Bellingham, for example, had exactly half of its roster graduate in June 2022. This season the team has only one senior. No matter how the Bayhawks finish out this season, they have the aid of youth on their side.
“We have two guys that play significant minutes that played on the C-team last year,” said Bellingham coach Brad McKay. “They had to make the jump from C-[team] to varsity, and in our league that’s not easy to do.”
Some incredible matchups are on the regular season horizon, only to likely be rematched in the postseason. When districts finally roll around, may the best teams triumph.
