Doc Larson Roundball Classic: A Christmas Tradition

WASILLA — After 11 years of hosting the annual Doc Larson Roundball Classic at Wasilla High, Warriors head coach Ryan Engebretsen knows that his boys teams have benefitted from high flying competition coming into the Valley to play in the holiday hoops tournament. The Colony Knights took home the Doc Larson Roundball Classic tourney title for the third year in a row on Saturday, proving to be among the best teams in the state and notching victories over tough out-of-state competition in the process.

“We make sure we bring quality opponents up for everybody,” said Engrebretsen. “We’ve never won our own tournament in 11 years and we could set it up completely differently, but we opt to really challenge ourselves this early so that we have a good picture of who we are and who we want to become later.”

The field this year included Mount Bethel from Georgia and Forest Grove from Colorado and each brought a player committed to play Division I next year, though neither of the outside teams were able to take home the trophy.

Engebretsen researches teams within the Last Frontier and those in the Lower 48 to bring up to the DLRC to provide the best basketball tournament his team can compete in on their home floor. When Engebretsen undertook the task of organizing the tournament, originally it was he and Doc Larson that did all the work, researching and reaching out to teams to bring up for the tournament.

“I have the right people on my committee that have taken a tremendous load off of my shoulders,” said Engebretsen. “We created this animal that turned into a beast.”

Just as the DLRC has become a beast, bringing up some of the best basketball talent in the country, so have the Wasilla Warriors basketball teams. Engebretsen called the opening night matchup between East Anchorage and Colony one between some of the best teams in the state and the crowd showed up to Wasilla high to see the first display of basketball for the 2019-2020 season.

“We’ve never won and the correlation between the two, I’ve got to believe, is the level and the quality of basketball that we bring here early really to set the stage for knowing what we need to be able to do by the end of the year,” said Engebretsen.

On the other side of the gym, Jeannie Hebert-Truax and the Wasilla girls have had an incredibly dominant decade, winning six titles in the last 12 years. The Warriors were in an unfamiliar place this weekend, being tested by the Anchorage Christian School Lions who have risen into a powerhouse.

“I told the girls I’d rather play them 10 times this year because it shows our weaknesses and shows what we actually have to improve on versus a team we can beat by 20 (where) we don’t see those weaknesses as much and... in my opinion, if you want to get better you have to play the better teams and ACS is a good team,” said Hebert-Truax.

The Wasilla boys have benefitted not only from hosting the DLRC over the past 11 years, but the play of the Devine family. Leading this year’s Warriors squad from an unfamiliar position is Luke, a senior. Luke’s younger brother Andrew, a junior is a force in the middle for Wasilla.

“He’s the best option for us to be successful, he has to go handle the ball. He has to be a point guard and he’s never done it in his life,” said Engebretsen.

Engebretsen described Luke, Andrew, and their two other brothers who have played for him in the last decade as ‘extremely high-character’ people to go along with their outstanding talent on the basketball court.

“You can count on the leadership, you can count on quality decisions off the floor,” said Engebretsen. “There’s nobody that represents Wasilla high better than our athletes that go out into the community and show the pride that they have for their school by doing the right things and acting the right way, and that’s been Devines for many many years.”