Rainier Beach dominates Lincoln to win 11th Boys 3A State Tournament Title. ‘We had a championship to win.’

TACOMA – Some games are won before they even start. The Rainier Beach Vikings checked into their Tacoma Dome locker room on Saturday night to find a message scrawled on their white board.

It said something like, “Davion (Shareef-Dulanaey) is No. 1, Tyran (Stokes) sucks, we’re here to take the ‘ship,” according to Micah Ili-Meneese, who was the outstanding player in the State 3A Tournament.

Rainier Beach essentially called “game” against Lincoln of Tacoma right then and there.

Eager to shut up the talkative Lincoln Abes, but relatively unable to, Ili-Meneese and the Vikings muffled their offense instead.

During a 75-53 throttling that earned Rainier Beach its 11th state championship, the Abes did not score a point until midway in the first quarter and didn’t log their first basket until 39 seconds remained in the period. They trailed 38-8 at halftime.

Things started so well for the Vikings that KJ Hightower scored their third basket while literally sitting on the floor.

At that point, it was all over, of course, but the shouting.

Coach Mike Bethea, who earned his state-record 10th state title, likes to say he starts out in a standard defense because he wants the opposing team to establish a comfort zone. Then he applies defensive pressure to get them out of that comfort zone. Against the Abes, there was no waiting.

“We have been getting off to such cold starts, we had to change up,” Bethea said. “Sometimes your offense doesn’t click, but your defense should always be there. That kind of pressure is Rainier Beach basketball.”

If defense wins championships, as it is said, then unadulterated mayhem wins championships early. The Viking defensive pressure forced the young Abes to play so much faster than they are accustomed, they were almost totally out of control. They either tossed away easy passes, dribbled the ball away, or shot layups so hard, they’d bang off the backboard.

The Vikings also have a considerable advantage in size and depth of athleticism and were able to intimidate the Abes with their speed and shot-blocking. Led by the three from Marques Ili-Meneese, the Vikings blocked 7 shots, forced the Abes into 19 turnovers, and limited them to a paltry 30.8% shooting.

In other words, barely a whisper.

“They tried talking to us, but we weren’t having it,” said Micah Ili-Meneese, who had 15 points, 10 rebounds, and finished the tournament hitting 27 of 36 shots (a blistering 75%). “We had a championship to win. At the beginning, they were nervous. They played scared.”

Shareef-Dulanaey, the mouthiest of the Abes, scored 18 points, but had to take 16 shots to get them. He also took a more-than-hard foul on Stokes and the Viking bench complained that he uttered a slur at them.

It says a lot about the development of the Vikings that, in their two biggest games of the year, they were not led in scoring by Stokes. He’d been their top scorer in 28 straight games until Micah Ili-Meneese’s 30 points during Beach’s 71-49 victory over Bellarmine Prep in Friday’s semifinal. Against the Abes, the Vikings were led by the 18 points of freshman JJ Crawford.

Stokes had 16 points against Lincoln, a day after a season-low 15 against Bellarmine Prep. That’s not to say the country’s No. 1 prospect wasn’t a major factor in the Vikings’ championship run. Starting in the second half of the Metro League season and continuing into the playoffs, opponents committed most of their defensive resources toward stopping Stokes, daring the rest of his teammates to score.

From late January, through February, and into March, opponents brutalized Stokes with physical tactics and his young teammates often struggled to counter. Stokes eventually would just barrel through all the contact to rescue Rainier Beach, time and time again. That changed this week in the Tacoma Dome.

Crawford and Babbs helped spark the Vikings’ quarterfinal win over O’Dea. Then Micah Ili-Meneese joined the party, and the players’ commitment to defense was so intense against Lincoln, the Rainier Beach offense didn’t need a focus shooter to score. Defense generated their points.

When it was all over, and Crawford stood atop a ladder to get his piece of the championship net, someone yelled for him to hold it up.

“I got three more to go,” Crawford replied, referring to years remaining for him at Rainier Beach and the championships to accompany them.

On Saturday, for a team with an emerging young core, that kind of thinking didn’t seem too far-fetched.

Glenn Nelson covered the Sonics and the NBA at The Seattle Times for 17 years. He was a founding executive at Rivals.com, a co-founder at Scout.com, and the founder of ESPN HoopGurlz, a national website about women's and girls' basketball. He has won regional awards for his columns about race for the South Seattle Emerald.