BY GREG SELBER

Mission Vet Guard Ben Gonzalez

EDINBURG – Listen to them talk, and it begins to make sense. Ben is learning from Romeo, and sometimes from Nathan, who learned from Romeo…who learned from too many guys to mention, but one is Mike. Or “Coach K.”

Confused? Soon it will all be clear, as plain and simple as a dribble-drive penetration for an assist by an athletic Patriot guard, of which there have been several. Mission Vets has become one of the most feared and recognized basketball programs in the land, a quick and aggressive Class 4A team that can stand up against the best, any class, and have a fighting chance.

Tuesday the Pats took their show on the road to Edinburg to face the rising Cougars of North. As always, the enemy was ready to challenge the Pats.

Romeo, who is Coach Romeo De la Garza, understands that every time out, teams are going to do their best to take out his club. He figures that’s a good thing, ironically.

“It shows how far we have come as a program,” said the former UTPA guard (two letters in the early ‘90s), who has taken his guys to the playoffs for seven years running. “Everyone wants to play their ‘A game’ against us, so we have to ready.”

Always looking for the edge, the hard-driving De la Garza attended a camp put on by Duke University this summer, and says it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience seeing Coach Mike Krzyzewski and the Blue Devils go.

“Those guys get after it, no question, and I was able to sit with Coach K and ask a ton of questions,” said De la Garza, who went over to North Carolina with Hidalgo coach Gus Sanchez and Vets assistant Isaac Lozano. “It was terrific, we really enjoyed it, and I couldn’t wait to get back to the Valley and implement some of the things we saw and heard.”

And De la Garza, 38, admits with relish that he is still learning things. Despite a well-deserved tag as one of the area’s best young mentors, he knows that every day there is a lesson to use.

“I think that a coach can always pick up something new,” said De la Garza, whose teams have won three bi-district titles and an area championship as well. “You have a philosophy that develops over time, molded from the things you learn along the way.”

His philosophy calls for strict man-to-man defense, patient passing on offense, and a series of runs during a game based on taking turnovers and hitting outside shots. This season, the Pats have four seasoned seniors who’ve compiled an 11-4 mark after Tuesday’s win at North. And right in the middle of the action is Ben.

Ben is Ben Gonzalez, a senior superstar averaging in the mid 20s per night, scoring-wise, and he comes to his many talents the hard way, with a little genetics thrown in. He learned the game growing up as a member of the Hoopsters, a local AAU outfit that boasted the likes of current McHigh studs Ryan Evans and J.J. Avila. Gonzalez says that he picked up a ton from his Hoopster teammates in the course of an elite-team career that began in the fourth grade.

Then there’s Nathan.

He wears jersey No. 1, like his older brother, and Ben will be the first one to tell you that Nathan Gonzalez, well, he speaks of him with the awe that only a sibling/fan can muster.

“He was something, my older brother,” said Gonzalez of the first No. 1, perhaps one of the finest point guards the Valley has seen in a decade. “He is a couple of years ahead of me, and we used to go at it all the time. I still marvel at some of the awesome plays he used to pull out…He was the best!”

That’s the way the Veterans family operates, with a long lineage of stars, related or not, a fanatical belief in defense and passing the ball, and a will to win that makes the program hard to beat, year in and year out.

Like De la Garza, Gonzalez knows that the Pats have a target on their backs, but he welcomes the challenge.

“Take tonight for example,” said the super senior who has scored 30 points four times this season, with games of seven and eight three-pointers. “No way North was going to just hand it to us, especially at home. We just had to come in here and play hard. We get a lot of intensity off our defense; if we don’t play defense hard, we will definitely hear about it from coach…when we slacked off on D tonight, those guys came on back on us, and we had to regroup a few times.”

LATEST VENTURE

“This is a tough place to play and this is a good North team,” De la Garza had noted before the non-district match. The Pats were to compete in the annual C.E. Vail Tourney later in the week, with a trip to San Antonio’s AT&T Center Monday (to play  Alice) before the Christmas break.

The Cougars, who have a deep roster and have been impressive at times so far, got some solid defensive work of their own early on from football star Juan Ramirez, and some inspired play from 6-foot-3 junior Jared Weems. Though Vets would connect on five 3s in the first half and consistently find big 6-4 junior post Kent Warren inside, North hung around, down by just six at the intermission.

“Kent has really gotten better, he worked hard in the offseason to get stronger,” said Gonzalez, who knocked down a trio of trifectas and had 11 in the half. “And he can catch real well inside, I just tell him to always be ready, because we are going to be throwing some looks his way.”

The blond-headed Warren has good feet and soft mitts, good for 17 points and eight rebounds a night so far in 2009-10. He had 11 points in the first half, and his coach comments that along with possessing fine skills, the junior center is a first-rate thinker.

“The guy is a great student, No. 1 in his class, so that’s a big plus,” De la Garza said of Warren, whose sister Kolby was a standout athlete at the school who is now playing college volleyball up in New York. “Kent has improved greatly and he has yet to really meet his entire potential. He is eager to recognize that and keep working on his game. I think he can be a really great player before he’s done.”

In that initial 16-minute span, the Pats showed their usual team concept, as Carlos Vela broke down the defense with a strong drive, dishing one inside to Warren, who converted easily. Next it was Gonzalez shaking his man up top and heading to the middle, finding the big center alone under the hoop: whip of a pass, slick catch and lay from Warren, Mission Vets in control.

But like the Pats say, everyone knows they are in town, and they play accordingly. With another footballer, Manny Garcia, notching five quick points, North cut into the visitor’s lead with a rush. Caleb Villarreal, another of the sharpshooting seniors in De la Garza’s fold, enjoyed a solid third with two outside jumpers as the Pats tried to pull away. One of the Villarreal threes put Vets up by nine, but sophomore Brandon Davila tossed five on the board with one of the team’s four threes (Weems had two earlier) and North trailed just 40-34 heading into the final period.

Gonzalez was not worried, because he and the other Pats have situations like this in hand.

“There’s a lot of chemistry on this team,” said Gonzalez, who had 14 points, five rebounds, and five assists despite having what he called a ‘bad game.’ “All these seniors went to the playoffs last year and so they have experience. We just kept playing, and working hard out there.”

The key blow came early, as Gonzalez spotted up for an arching three-ball off a feed from Vela after the latter made a steal, came up, and found the open man, Patriot style. Vela would have 10 of the team’s 13 points in the last quarter, as the team cruised to a 53-42 victory. In their turn, each of the kids stepped up with some quality minutes, including hustling role player A.J. Gonzalez, the fourth of the 12^th-graders on the playlist.

“That guy can jump and play great defense,” Gonzalez bragged. “I keep getting after him to use his skills to score more, because I know he can do it. All he needs is a little more confidence. Like all of us, A.J. is working on his game, fixing things every time, and come district, I think he will be ready to go.”

As for the District 32-4A race, don’t tell the Pats that they are a shoo-in, although all the pundits have them penciled in for a fourth league title in eight years. De la Garza said that the league is perennially a tough muster.

“I know that some of the other teams have been up and down, but that doesn’t mean much,” he promised. “When they play us, I know Roma, Mercedes, all of those guys are going to come at us, they usually do, and it makes it tough for us to keep doing well. But if we work hard, we play our defense, we’ll have a good chance to be successful.”

With four starters in double figures, the Pats closed out the Coogs Tuesday, though De la Garza played just six kids and is going to try and evaluate some bench strength over at the Vail later this week.

“North was ready for us, like I thought, and we had to attack their man defense and create opportunities,” he explained. “If we can make two of their guys jump up and guard the driver, we get openings for the others, and we can convert high-percentage shots. I have been straightforward with these guys, I told them that they have the potential to be one of the best teams I have ever had here. Now it’s up to them.”

Gonzalez has been listening to that advice, and he also gets the occasional pointer from older bro, Nathan, No. 1 The First. As a four-year starter with the chance to be an All-Valley MVP, the high-scoring No. 1 The Second is fired up for the rest of the season.

“I think I tried to do too much tonight, took some bad shots, but our deal is, keep shooting, keep shooting,” he opined. “If we penetrate and find the open man, we are hard to stop. I know I have some big shoes to fill because of Nathan, I guess I have carried on some of his strengths and learned from some of his weaknesses.

“If you say I could be the best player in the Valley, well, I take that as motivation. I try to be that, I try every night to be that…bottom line, though, this is a team effort, and we know that when teams see us on their schedule, they come with their best game.”

Tags: basketball, Mission Veterans, Patriots