Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood had a historic season on the football field back in the fall and now the school’s basketball squad appears poised to do the same. The Cranes hoopsters are 12-0 and looking to match the football team’s Catholic League crown.

Cranbrook-Kingswood has never won a Catholic League title in basketball. The Cranes gridders captured the first district championship in school history in November.

The basketball team is a diverse mix of multi-talented young men. Their skill sets are paying dividends on both sides of the ball.

“These guys love getting after it, they can score and they are incredibly defensive minded as a group,” head coach Shane Finney said.

Tim Hauxwell (6-foot-8) is one of the top two-sport athletes in the area. He’s arguably the best center in the lower division of the CHSL and anchored the Cranes line play during football season. Next year, he’ll play on the gridiron at Michigan Tech. This winter, he’s averaging a double-double of 15 points and 12 rebounds per game.

Junior Terrell Williams (eight points, five assists per outing) runs the club’s point and is flanked by sharpshooter and coach’s kid Alex Finney and defensive stopper Clark Doman in the backcourt. Sophomore Jack Fairman starts on the wing and juniors Kobi Russell and Collin Canning fuel the team’s bench brigade.

Finney is a standout on the baseball diamond, already committed to Ohio University as a junior. He’s pumping in 12 points a night on the hardwood. Russell is an All-CHSL pick as a wide receiver in football and Doman and Canning are all-state soccer players. Fairman is a linebacker on the football team.

“We’ve got a unique blend, lots of kids who play lots of sports,” the elder Finney said. “They’re all amazing competitors and it’s been a blast seeing them develop on the basketball floor. This is a fun team to coach. They all know their roles and everybody’s in-sync. We’re having a great time together this season.”

The Moore the better

West Bloomfield recently inducted Larry Moore into its athletic hall of fame, honoring the only coach in state history to take both boys and girls basketball programs to the final four in the same school year (2002-2003). Moore was an All-PSL selection himself in the 1960s at Detroit Mumford, patrolling the paint against the likes of future professional athletes like Detroit Pershing’s Spencer Haywood (NBA) and Ralph Simpson (ABA-NBA) and Detroit Northwestern’s John Mayberry (MLB) to the tune of 25 points and 15 rebounds per game. As a senior in 1966, he led Mumford to the Class A quarterfinals before suiting up in college at Detroit-Mercy and then later as a pro in Europe.

Moore’s grandson, Donavan, is starring in the West Bloomfield backcourt this winter following a move from Illinois this past summer. The younger Moore is one of the most talked about recruits in the state’s Class of 2019. Within a month of landing in Michigan to live with his grandfather, he scooped 10 Division I college scholarship offers.

Tweet of the week

“My goals are for me, not for what others think….I wasn’t made to be normal, I was made to standout,” – Walled Lake Western football and basketball player Randall Harris (signed with Central Michigan on the gridiron)