The National Case for Beach, Part III
There's a lot of great basketball played all over the country, including Seattle
To further complicate this examination of Rainier Beach High School’s national relevancy, The Throne, the tournament from which the Vikings were disinvited, isn’t the only one that bills itself as a “national championship.” There is another, the Chipotle Nationals, that has been around longer – for 17 years. The Throne has been around since 2023.
They have one thing in common: Rainier Beach is not playing in either.
The marketing team at both events must be cursing their bad luck. Selling the Rainier Beach Vikings as a mix of excitement and high-profile players and coaches, with a touch of drama, would have been – if you will – a slam dunk.
Could they not simply run on loop some footage of KJ Hightower making a shot against Lincoln while seated on the Tacoma Dome floor?
The headliner, of course, is Tyran Stokes, not only the consensus No. 1 prospect in the 2026 class, but a McDonald’s and Naismith All-American, USA Basketball stalwart, and has an NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) deal as a Nike Ambassador. He would have brought the drama of not yet having chosen his college destination to the beginning of the NCAA tournament (The Throne) or to the doorstep of its Final Four (Chipotle). There may be no more entertaining high-school player in the country.
With Stokes comes his “little bro,” JJ Crawford, who, if not the very best freshman in the nation, certainly is among the top 2-3. He’s just 15 years old but on the two biggest stages of this season so far, he had 32 points, 10 in overtime, in front of 23 NBA and 70 college scouts at the HoopHall Classic in Springfield, Mass., and a game-high 20 points in the state championship game.
Adding to Crawford’s story is his father, Jamal, the best player to ever come out of Seattle and, as a lead analyst on NBC broadcasts, one of the most recognizable faces in the NBA nation. Jamal Crawford assists coach Mike Bethea, the owner of 10 state title rings and a coaching icon in Washington state.
The Vikings run a legitimate nine players deep, sometimes 10, with virtually no fall off in speed and athleticism. After watching video this past week of the other top high-school teams in the country, I can confidently say that few speed up a game with its combination of athleticism, defensive pressure, and transition offense as does Rainier Beach.
I can’t imagine the crowds and media in New Jersey (The Throne) or Indiana (Chipotle) not falling in love with Vikings Micah Ili-Meneese and Kam Babbs the way everyone did at the Tacoma Dome. Ili-Meneese, or “Micah Jordan” to his fans, fulfilled long-prophesized overall greatness during the state tournament, and Babbs showed he was more than a high-wire act. Achilles Reyna had his best game in the championship and has the size, athleticism, and inside-out game that will have college scouts drooling.
The real crime of Rainier Beach’s exclusion from national tournament play is that Babbs, Crawford, Ili-Meneese, Reyna, as well as sophomore Knowledge Wright, don’t get to showcase their basketball wares before a national audience (in addition to scouts, the NBA app for The Throne, ESPN for Chipotle), especially at a time when Seattle seems to be closing in on regaining an NBA franchise.
In case it escaped notice, I just made a case for Rainier Beach being a factor in any national competition.
Beach’s additional appeal is something that many overlook: Rainier Beach is a public school. That’s usual on a national level, at least as represented in all the polls. Half of The Throne field is public schools; none are in Chipotle, which has more top-ranked schools from my mythical “national championship” field, 4-1.
By the way, I’m giving myself permission to edit my field. After watching the top teams go at it, I found a couple that should not be left out. The field that I’m sticking with: 1. St. Paul VI Catholic (Fairfax, Va.), 33-2; 2. Sierra Canyon (Chatsworth, Calif.), 30-1; 3. Calvary Christian Academy (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.), 24-1; 4. Prolific Prep (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.), 36-3; 5. AZ Compass Prep (Chandler, Ariz.), 18-5; 6. Dynamic Prep (Irving, Tex.), 29-1; 7. The Principia School (St. Louis, Mo.), 29-2; 8. Rainier Beach (Seattle), 29-1.
Rainier Beach does not “qualify” based on my model of taking the teams with the highest average rankings from five polls (ESPN, MaxPreps, Rivals composite, SI, USA Today). But the point of this three-part exercise has been revealing the several biases that marginalize a high-school team like the Vikings.
Rainier Beach isn’t the only major team missing from the national-championship equation. Sierra Canyon (Chatsworth, Calif.) finished what is considered one of the toughest gauntlets in the sport: winning California’s open division state championship. The Trailblazers have a compelling case for a national championship, but they cannot prove it on the court. California schools are not allowed to compete beyond the state’s championship tournaments.
My mythical national championship would have provided the Vikings an opportunity to square “the one that got away,” which is Sierra Canyon. Rainier Beach played in the Les Schwab Invitational in Portland during the holidays, presumably hunting for a semifinal matchup with the Californians. But the Vikings had only five relatively meaningless tuneups and were ambushed by Southridge (Oregon), which stands as the only blemish on their record.
The Vikings and Trailblazers have two common opponents – Southridge, which Sierra Canyon rolled by 25 in Portland, and Bishop McNamara, which provided Sierra Canyon’s only loss, but lost to Rainier Beach in Springfield, but was missing its top player, Qayden Samuels, a top 20 recruit. Sierra Canyon has two McDonald’s All-Americans, Maximo Adams and Brandon McCoy, who also is a Naismith All-American.
Every top team has great players, including Rainier Beach, which is what makes them elite. My No. 1 seed, St. Paul VI, has Jordan Smith Jr., who will remind old heads of former Sonic Ricky Pierce in build and mid-range magic. Paul VI shoots the three well, something that haunted Rainier Beach at times this season, but it split with my No. 3 seed, Cavalry Christian, and lost to No. 4 Prolific Prep.
I felt the least conviction including Cavalry Christian, especially at such a high seed. Their point guard, Cayden Daughtry, is an elite scorer but on the smallish side at 6 feet. And they’ve already lost in The Throne to a team, Long Island Luthern, that was ranked in none of the polls and entered the tournament with a 12-12 record. Long Island then lost in the championship game to Columbus of Miami, Fla., the team Sierra Canyon beat to win the Les Schwab Invitational.
Prolific is an athletic, trapping team that makes opponents play faster than they want to, something we also say about the Vikings. Prolific is led by 6-5 Caleb Holt, a McDonald’s and Naismith All-American, and the smooth but spindly 6-7 Bruce Branch III, another McDonald’s All-American. Prolific was taken down at the HoopHall Classic by Dynamic Prep, which is led by Austin Goosby, a McDonald’s All-American headed to Texas. Dynamic is a bit of an enigma in that it made the championship of last year’s Chipotle, plays a bit of a national schedule, then morphs into a team called FaZe that plays in the Overtime Elite League, and is coached by Jermaine O’Neal, who played in the NBA (17 years) almost as long as Jamal Crawford.
Wedged between the Preps, Prolific and Dynamic, is another, AZ Compass Prep, which is, like the other two, basically a basketball academy. The Arizona version is led by twins Kaden and Kalek, the sons of Eddie House, who played 11 years in the NBA. Kaden House is headed to Maryland, is an outstanding defender, and always in go-mode on offense. The House twins are more than supported by lean, 6-7 Demarcus Henry, who is ranked among the top 10-15 recruits in the 2027 class.
My final team, Principia School, plays well together and can fill it up in a hurry, but not necessarily because they always are in overdrive. This team can shoot, and the best of them is Quentin Coleman, a four-star guard headed to Wake Forest who had a season high of 50 points.
The difference between all these teams and Rainier Beach is minimal on a basketball court. Off the court, it’s potentially monumental. The other seven schools are either private or sport-focused academies – the two types of programs that Stokes fled to attend Rainier Beach. That means they can promise a lot more sweeteners, putting them in the national picture every year, which adds to their branding.
But, let’s face it, if you are purporting to be a national expert on high-school boys basketball, and do not instantly recognize the Rainier Beach “brand,” which includes 11 state championships and seven first-round NBA draft picks, among so many other things, maybe you should take your expertise somewhere more appropriate, like tournament director for The Throne.