This Lapwai boys basketball team might be among best in history

I've said this for about four weeks. Please put Lapwai's boys basketball team up with the best in the the state.

In fact, you could have gathered the six state champions for a makeshift tournament at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa on Sunday. Allow this year's Class 5A (Owyhee) and Class 4A champion (Hillcrest) to have a bye. Put the current two-time defending Class 1A Division I state title-holder against the 2022 Class 2A champion (Melba). Put this season's Class 3A champion (Kimberly) against the Class 1A Division II state champion (Rockland).

Then let's play it out and I would bet every last nickel I have the Wildcats would win. There's no question, Lapwai laps the field.

This Wildcat team, bar none, has etched its place in history. The win streak will head into the 2022-23 season at 36 games after beating Kamiah 88-46 in Saturday's championship contest at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa.

In fact, and this might be blasphemous to say and for some to hear, but this group could rival the one that went on that historic 81-game winning streak from 1987-89.

For the nostaglic ones (or those who were not alive in the era), that's the Lapwai teams that trotted out the likes of Littlefoot Ellenwood, Rapahel Guillory, Robert Blair, Jesse and Gem Leighton, Mike Sobotta and Greg Jose.

For starters, let's take the first boys basketball player in school history to sign with an NCAA Division I school out of high school, senior Titus Yearout.

All the 6-foot-2 senior has done is rewrite the record book. He was a second-team all-state selection as a freshman. In 2020, Yearout led the state by averaging 29.5 points per game in earning first-teal all-state honors.

Last season, he averaged 24.0 points, 8.0 rebounds, 5.5 assists, 3.1 steals and 1.2 blocks per game in leading Lapwai to an 11th state championship, tying Idaho Falls and Moscow for second-most all-time.

It was then that many in the nation took notice of the town of around 1,400, thanks to Brooklyn Nets All-Star guard Kyrie Irving. Irving gave the team not just one but two shout-outs on Instagram and Facebook, respectively, before and after the run to the title.

In this, his final year, Yearout has been more of a facilitator to guys like senior Kross Taylor, sophomore Kase Wynott and junior Terrell Ellenwood-Jones. Yearout's numbers aren't anything to sneeze at, as he averaged 15.5 points, five rebounds, seven assists and two steals per contest.

This year's top scorer is Wynott, a 6-6 forward who is the next budding Lapwai star, already had gotten looks from Washington State and probably will be the second player from the school to go DI. Wynott averaged around 25 points per game.

Taylor isn't too shabby, either. The 6-3 guard who just recently hit 1,000 points in his career and averaged 14 points per game.

Ellenwood-Jones is not a guy you want to leave alone either. The 6-0 guard finished at 12.0 points per game this season.

Clogging up the middle is AJ Ellenwood, who really stepped up his game of late. The 6-5 senior was part of a class that won 90 percent of their games (69-8 overall).

I haven't mentioned yet the third-year coach of this juggernaut, Zachary Eastman, who is just the fourth mentor in school history to lead Lapwai's boys to multiple titles (Bruce Crossfield, 1987-89; Josh Leighton Jr., 2000 and 2002; and Bob Sobotta Jr., 2017-18).

The Wildcats averaged an all-classification high of 83 points per game, racking up more than 100 four different times in a stretch in late January. Lapwai has an average victory margin of 36.7 points per game, tops among all classes. Tell me the last time either of those things happened.

The Wildcats beat seven teams this year above their class. Their resume is second to none:

Beat 2020-21 Idaho Class 2A state champion St. Maries twice (59-53 on Dec. 3 at St. Maries; 86-56 on Feb. 8 at home);

Beat Idaho Class 5A Coeur d'Alene 76-68 on Dec. 18 on the road;

Beat Washington Class 3A North Central of the Greater Spokane League 81-60 on Dec. 21 on the road;

Then in successive days Dec. 28-30 at the Avista Holiday Tournament at the P1FCU Activity Center on the campus of Lewis-Clark State College, Lapwai took down:

Idaho Class 3A Kellogg 70-46;

Washington Class 2A Clarkston of the GSL 76-52, and to top it all off;

Idaho Class 5A Lewiston 81-63 in the tournament title game.

Please tell me who, in this state and maybe even in the Northwest region right now, can compete with Lapwai?

Oh you say Class 5A Lake City of Coeur d'Alene, who might have the best big man in the state (who also used to play at Moscow in 6-11 junior post Blake Buchanan)? Oh contraire mon frere. Anyone up for a game of six degrees of separation?

The Timberwolves lost 62-57 at Lewiston on Feb. 3. Let's just remember four paragraphs ago the story I told you about when the Bengals fell to the Wildcats. Oh, and if there were any doubt, Lake City lost in the first round of the state tournament, then fell in the consolation final.

The Class 5A champion in Owyhee? Nope. Sure, the first-year school from Meridian went 4-3 in its first seven games, then won its final 20 to claim that title. But quite frankly, the Storm had it easy against a watered-down field after the Timberwolves lost in the first round.

So let's have an argument if you like, or we can compare eras. This is why sports is so much fun.

But let there be no doubt, this Lapwai boys team has left an indelible mark on its community, in this area and the state of Idaho.

You can debate on whether or not this Wildcats team is the best in the school's illustrious history.

For my money, it ranks up there with those teams in the late 1980s.

Walden may be reached at (208) 848-2258, dwalden@lmtribune.com, or on Twitter @waldo9939.