Savage Words: Basketball seasons have mirrored each other in an eerie way

At some point, things will break away from the current trend.

But until then, the similarities between the Brandon Valley girls and boys’ basketball seasons is hard to miss. It’s uncanny, really, to see how the last two seasons have almost mirrored each other.

Every week, it’s nearly the same thing. It’s a little unique, kinda eerie, and mesmerizing at the same time.

It actually all started last year, right from the start. Both the boys and girls from Brandon Valley opened the season 0-2 with losses to Sioux Falls O’Gorman and Jefferson. Both the Lynx teams were unranked to start the season, so a pair of losses wasn’t shocking.

But that’s when eeriness really started to creep in. Both teams turned things around and got to .500 before a weather postponement in mid-January for both teams. The boys were 3-3, the girls 4-3 with an obscure trip to Tea Area just before the holiday break.

That’s when both teams went on massive winning streaks. The boys won 12 straight. The girls won a school-record 13 in a row over the exact same time period.

In a rare ESD double-header on Feb. 20, the boys and girls played back-to-back at the Corn Palace in Mitchell. Both games were marquee games in Class AA. Both the boys and girls’ teams from Brandon Valley had climbed the ranks, as both, of course, were ranked No. 3. The Mitchell boys were No. 1, the Mitchell girls No. 2.

But it was there when both, of course, Brandon Valley winning streaks came to an end.

I went to those games in Mitchell. It was at that point on my drive back east when I started to realize that something odd was happening, that there was something strange about these two seasons mirroring each other at the exact same time, against the same schools, with the wins and losses adding up, again, almost identical.

After the Mitchell losses, the Brandon Valley boys were 14-4 and ranked No. 3. The girls were, not surprisingly, also 14-4 and ranked No. 3.

Both teams last year entered the Class AA state tournament as the No. 3 seed. Both made it to the championship game, and both lost in the finals to the top-ranked team.

It was a season to remember, and I do recall walking out of the Sanford Premier Center following the boy’s championship game thinking about how the two seasons were so similar. Such magical runs after opening the season unranked, only to both end in losses in the championship game.

Those types of seasons, I thought, certainly couldn’t happen again.

This season, the girls opened ranked No. 2. The boys were unranked. So there, again I thought, that should be the end of the uniqueness of the mirrored seasons.

But alas, here we go again. Outside of a scheduling wrinkle last week with the girls getting a win at Crofton, Neb., the boys and girls’ seasons are almost identical…again.

After wins at Spearfish and Douglas over the weekend, both teams have one loss (the boys are 7-1, the girls are 8-1). Both are ranked No. 3 … again … in Class AA, and both are riding long winning streaks (the boys are at six, the girls at seven).

Perhaps the craziest thing is that it’s not like girls head coach Mike Zerr and boys head coach Craig Nelson are emulating each other. Far from it. The coaching styles are different, the approach to each game is different, the practices are different. It’s different, as it should be.

The two coaches talk during the day at the high school, but seldom it’s about their teams. But both have at least recognized the irony of their teams having this strange similar trip for the last two seasons.

“If we can keep up with the girls this year, that would be a good thing,” Nelson said. “I’d love to have the same team as them.”

For Zerr, he not surprisingly said something similar. Winning, after all, is the end game.

“As long as we’re both having success, I could care less if the comparisons ever break,” he said with a chuckle in regards to the similar seasons.

Maybe not the entire reason, but it’s likely something can be said for Brandon Valley being in the largest class of basketball, yet their players remain together throughout. Unlike high schools in Sioux Falls where four public high schools incorporate players from seven middle schools, Brandon Valley players are together from the start.

“I would be more than OK to be compared to Coach Nelson and his staff,” Zerr said. “I think our staffs are similar because we’ve spent a lot of time together with the same people. A lot of us have those same experiences.”

And speaking of experiences, it’s been quite a ride for the last two years with this crew.

Here’s to hoping they can continue mirroring each other into another crack at a title in late March.