Winning Tradition Puts Mater Dei in Class by Itself : Prep Wednesday: Boys’ basketball program has drawn admiration, respect and complaints.

Mater Dei boys’ basketball means different things to different people.

To Mark Thornton, the Capistrano Valley coach whose team must play Mater Dei twice in the South Coast League, it’s the inevitable:

“We’re going to lose two games.”

To Matt Semonza, a former Monarch and current Long Beach St. Anthony point guard, it’s the reality of seeing a senior starter ahead of him and a freshman phenom behind him:

“The only way I was going to get to play was if someone got hurt. It was time to move along.”

To Stuart Thomas, a former standout for the Monarchs, it’s the quality of being the best around:

“I remember playing in college and thinking how it was better at Mater Dei.”

And to Gary McKnight, Mater Dei’s coach, it’s the absurdity of watching “Cheers” until 11:30 p.m. and then heading to the grocery store to shop in private:

“If I run into five people, three of them will say, ‘How you doing tonight?’ The other two will say something like, ‘Have you guys recruited anyone else lately?’ ”

The root of it all is success.

Mater Dei basketball has risen above the crowd--head and shoulders above it, in fact. It is a program that has drawn admiration, respect and, yes, complaints.

--Coaches in Orange County are resigned to, and almost accept, defeat. Only six county schools have beaten the Monarchs in the last 11 seasons and none since 1991. If they can’t beat them, they certainly don’t want to join them. Coaches would prefer the Monarchs play in a league of their own.

--Players come to the school to test themselves and are asked to make a tremendous commitment. One player described it as a responsibility to the past. Some succeed and flourish. Others don’t and leave.

--McKnight, the man in charge, has become a symbol of the Monarchs’ power. Yet, he is saddled with the high expectations of some and the low opinions of others. He’ll go shopping for food and be accused of shopping for players.

All because of a program that has grown into a national power, one that has no equal locally.

“In Orange County, there’s Mater Dei and then there’s everyone else,” La Quinta Coach Jim Perry said. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

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On Jan. 14, El Toro’s freshman team defeated Mater Dei. It was the first time a South Coast League team had beaten the Monarchs, on any level, since they joined the league last season.

“It was probably one of the greatest high school feats I’ve seen,” El Toro varsity Coach Tim Travers said. “It was great for our freshmen, but I realized that Mater Dei has three freshmen playing on the varsity. That’s the difference between a good program and a great one.”

Mater Dei--the largest Catholic high school west of Chicago--had a good, but not great, basketball team when McKnight was hired in 1982. No one was awed. No one pointed fingers. But, then, no one saw what was coming.

In 11 seasons, the Monarchs have won two State Division I championships, three Southern California regional titles and eight Southern Section championships. They are mentioned in the same breath with the top programs in the nation--Los Angeles Crenshaw, Chicago King, Manhattan Rice, Mouth of Wilson (Va.) Oak Hill Academy.

The Monarchs are currently ranked second in the nation by USA Today. They have left the rest of the county behind.

“They totally changed the whole concept of competition,” Laguna Hills Coach Dave Brown said. “You used to have to guess who might end up No. 1. At this point, that’s not even a question. It takes some of the joy out of it.”

Mater Dei has been the county’s top-ranked team 10 of the last 11 seasons. Only Saddleback broke that run, in 1989. In comparison, nine football teams and eight baseball teams have finished No. 1 in the county the last decade.

“They combine a great coaching staff with outstanding talent,” Century Coach Greg Coombs said. “That gets you some pretty good results.”

Such as a 343-28 record in the last 11-plus seasons and a national reputation.

The Monarchs have stretched their horizons beyond Orange County, playing in national tournaments and even at world fairs in Australia and Spain. When they do stay home, it’s an event. Mater Dei even uses the UC Irvine Bren Center for home games and usually draws larger crowds than the Anteaters.

“We’ve been very fortunate,” McKnight said. “I don’t think people realize that there were years that we didn’t have the talent people thought we had. I think a lot of tradition helped us through some of those years.”

With tradition comes commitment.

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Two years ago, the school’s junior varsity team lost to Lakewood in the final of a tournament. It was the team’s first loss of the season. McKnight and the team’s coach met with the players.

“He thought we weren’t playing to our capabilities,” said St. Anthony senior Dustin Hankins, who was on the team. “He said if people didn’t play better, he’d bring up some freshmen to take their place.”

That was after only one loss, on the junior varsity level no less. Still, Hankins and the rest accepted the admonishment.

“We hadn’t been playing well for a few games,” he said.

Playing against Mater Dei is not easy, playing for Mater Dei can be equally as difficult. The competition can be fierce in practice--a war as one former player described it--where players try to earn game time.

No one slacks. There’s too much talent. Enough, in fact, to field three freshmen teams and that doesn’t include the three freshmen who see regular playing time with the varsity.

“If you don’t do something right, they’ll just put another guy in and see if he can do it better,” Hankins said. “He’ll be playing and you’ll be sitting.”

A fact of Monarch life.

“I’m in a situation where I have depth,” McKnight said. “At some schools, a coach can tell a kid, ‘If you don’t work hard, I’m going to replace you.’ The kid knows the coach can’t replace him. Here, if someone doesn’t want to put out, if someone wants to be a problem or someone just isn’t fitting in, there’s someone else who can take his place.

“This is a great spot for players who want to be challenged.”

Some are equal to the challenge, others aren’t. There has been a revolving door with the Monarch program. McKnight said he lost 10 or 11 players this season alone. Four of the five starters for St. Anthony’s are former Mater Dei players.

Semonza left before last season. He was expecting to back up point guard Kamran Sufi, but when freshman standout Olujimi Mann--another point guard--enrolled at Mater Dei, Semonza could see the writing on the wall.

“I discussed it with Coach McKnight and he was honest with me,” Semonza said. “He understood how I felt and I wasn’t mad at him. There is always a chance of younger talent coming in at Mater Dei.”

Said McKnight: “I think it’s a pyramid effect. We have two or three freshmen teams and basketball is a five-man game. Then again, you have to judge, what is my reward? Is it just playing time, then, yeah, maybe you should go to another school. If you come to Mater Dei just for basketball, I think that’s a mistake. There is so much more this school has to offer.”

But the rewards of basketball, many former players say, are reason enough to go to Mater Dei. The Monarchs have sent more than 30 players to Division I programs.

“Basketball is almost a way of life at Mater Dei,” said Charlie Andres, who played from 1987-90. “You’re a basketball player. You come home from school so exhausted at times that you fall right to sleep. You wake up, eat dinner, do your homework and go to bed. You play 60 games during the summer and get one month off.

“You have to be totally dedicated to play there and give up a lot of your life. But I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Andres, now a student at California, has a State championship ring.

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Stuart Thomas remembers his last game as a Monarch. Mater Dei lost, 59-57, in overtime to Crenshaw in the 1986 Southern California Division I regional final. It was the only loss of Thomas’ two-year varsity career.

“You were afraid to lose because you knew what would happen in practice,” said Thomas, who later played at Stanford and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Winning might not be everything at Mater Dei, but it’s near the top of the list.

“People at Mater Dei don’t like to lose,” Semonza said. “It’s in the air, like an aura. Losing is something that never happens. Everyone wants to win badly. That’s what they are taught.”

Mater Dei won the section’s Major Division title in McKnight’s first season, becoming the first Orange County team to do so in 46 years. That set a very high standard.

League titles now are a given and section championships expected. Regional and State championships are the new challenges and, in the distance, the national rankings.

“We won that first year and it was almost like expectations have gone past league titles,” McKnight said. “To me, the section championship is always No. 1. State is not realistic, because you can have a bad night against that caliber of team and you’re going to lose.”

With the winning, has come a reputation that has been difficult to live down. The Monarchs won lots of games but not many friends during McKnight’s first seasons.

McKnight will painfully rehash the charges of recruiting, which he denies. As he points out, Mater Dei was never found guilty of a serious offense.

Then again, Mater Dei’s record is hardly squeaky clean.

Mater Dei was reprimanded for undue influence in recruiting three Corona del Mar players in 1988. The penalties were minor and McKnight denies any wrongdoing. He said he was invited by a Mater Dei administrator to talk with one of the Corona del Mar athletes, which school officials said was not a violation.

But Andres admitted that, while playing in a junior high school tournament at Mater Dei, he was approached by a Monarch freshman coach. Andres, who was in the eighth grade, said the coach told him: “We could really use you here. I hope you keep us in mind.”

Dean Crowley, the acting Southern Section commissioner, said that would be a violation. McKnight said he had no knowledge of such an incident.

“We are very close to the Mater Dei campus and we’ve had students leave and people have told us the same thing,” said Perry, the La Quinta coach. “It comes down to one person’s word against another person’s word, so I don’t know what to believe.”

Said Brea-Olinda Coach Gene Lloyd: “At this point, they’re probably legitimate as anybody. With their reputation, they are going to get the good players. But there are a lot of question marks that have never been answered.”

McKnight hears them all the time, usually from strangers. Which is why he sometimes shops at midnight.

“I never wear Mater Dei stuff when I’m in public,” he said. “I don’t live under a microscope, I live under a telescope.”

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What South Coast League coaches fear is that no one will ever get a crack at a league title again, or at least for four more seasons. The Monarchs are locked into the league until 1998.

“I don’t mind Mater Dei being the best team in the county,” Thornton said. “I do mind that they are in the South Coast League. They are not giving some kids in our league a chance to excel.”

Thornton said the Monarchs operate under different rules. Mater Dei, as a private school, has no enrollment boundary, a situation that fuels the traditional argument against putting private schools in public school leagues.

Public schools will have the boundaries within their districts lifted this summer under state law. But even when the law is implemented, a feeling of Not In My Back Yard will persist.

“When we realigned the leagues, Mater Dei was moved from two or three different ones,” Coombs said. “Every time it was mentioned that they were going into a league, five basketball coaches were screaming and with good cause. They can’t compete with Mater Dei.”

McKnight said he would prefer to play in an all-Catholic school league. But school officials have said the long-distance travel between Catholic schools would take kids out of the classroom. It’s the reason they stress local competition.

Trouble is, there is no local competition. Mater Dei has not had a league game closer than 19 points this season. It has won four by 50 or more points.

“How exciting can it be to win every game by 50 points?” Buena Park assistant Greg Katz said.

Not very, said McKnight. But in the end, it could mean one thing to everyone.

Said El Toro’s Travers: “About the only thing they haven’t won is a national title. That’s all that’s left.”

Gary McKnight at Mater Dei

Year, Record: Major accomplishments 1982-83, 29-3: Southern Section Major Division champions 1983-84, 28-2: Section Major Division runner-up 1984-85, 29-0: Section 5-A champions 1985-86, 30-1: Section 5-A champions 1986-87, 31-1: Section 5-A champions, State Division I champions 1987-88, 21-8: Section 5-A champions 1988-89, 25-3: Section 5-A quarterfinalists 1989-90, 34-1: Section 5-A champions, State Division I champions 1990-91, 25-5: Section Division I-A semifinalists 1991-92, 34-2: Section Division I-A champions, State Division I runner-up 1992-93, 33-2: Section Division I-A champions, State Division I semifinalists 1993-94, 24-0: Ranked 2nd in the nation by USA Today