By Ron Brocato

With the start of the District 9-5A basketball schedule less than two weeks away, Brother Martin head coach Wesley Laurendine and his staff have gotten the district’s smallest team ranked among the state’s elite Division I quintets.

With home games scheduled against St. Stanislaus of Bay St. Louis and Sarah Reed on Jan. 12 and Jan. 13, respectively, the Crusaders take a 14-5 record and the No. 6 power rankings into these tune-up games.

The first district game will match the Crusaders against Archbishop Rummel at the Robert M. Conlin Gymnasium on Jan. 23. Brother Martin defeated Rummel, 64-61, on Jan. 6 in a non-district game, and followed that win with a 62-60 victory over Holy Cross on Jan. 9.
In doing so, the Crusaders survived two grueling overtime periods.

Unfortunately, the two victories do not count as district wins because the league counts just one round of play as designated district matchups for championship consideration. But they are wins nonetheless against two highly ranked opponents.

Entering the final days of pre-district play, Brother Martin ranks behind No. 1 John Curtis (16-1), No. 3 Edna Karr (14-4), and No. 5 Jesuit (12-3) among the district power ratings. Non-district teams at Alexandria and Tioga fill the Nos. 2 and 4 positions, and St. Augustine (17-2), Rummel (11-7), Holy Cross (13-5), and Warren Easton (9-7) have fewer power points but cannot be taken lightly.

Coaching the district’s shortest team -- just two underclassmen who stand above 6-1 – has not been a great challenge for Laurendine, who has been working to develop unity among his new players since taking over the Brother Martin program during summer league play. The former Archbishop Shaw mentor, whose 2024-2025 team finished as the Division II runner-up last season, has positioned the Crusaders among the division’s most competitive squads as they enter the final weeks before district play begins.

At this point, the coach said, “I think (the players) have settled into their roles, so they are all recognizing that this is what they need to do to be successful and be stars in their roles. And now their roles are clearly defined.”

The Crusaders have a few injuries entering the week’s hardwood tests, so it is important that players who might have been backups step into a starting posture. “Right now we’re only playing six (healthy) guys, but we’ve been able to adjust as they learn how I want them to play.”

Brother Martin had to learn a new system under a new coach, who learned during the summer the strengths and weaknesses of his players. And after playing and winning five of their first six games at home to start the season, the transitioning Crusaders received their first test away from home, leading into the Christmas break.

From Dec. 3 through the end of December, the Crimson and Gold played a stretch of 14 games away from the friendly faces of their home crowd and “Conlin Crazies,” as Laurendine slowly and deliberately added new wrinkles to their offenses. And during that time, the team responded by winning nine of 13 games before adding a 10th win at Rummel.

Now the coach wants to see continued improvement as they prepare to enter a district whose seven opponents have won 76 percent of their early games. The Crusaders found a way to win two close overtime games. But that’s not going to get them through the rigorous trek through the Catholic League.

“We’ve got to start doing a better job of putting (opponents) away,” Laurendine said. “If we start letting teams hang around, things are just not going to bounce our way. I don’t want us to live on luck; I want us to live on work and execution. And our execution has been pretty good up to now.”

He pointed out one thing his own past taught him: “It took me a long time to learn how to win district. What I had to do was get the kids to realize that there are no possessions that don’t matter. Every possession matters.”

“I try to emphasize how important the ball is for us to win. It sounds so simple, but it’s not,” he continued. “The ball is ours. Try not to give it to the other team.”

And you can’t score points without the ball.