ANAHEIM – Loara’s boys basketball team played a game Monday, its first in 33 years without Ed Prange as the coach, and lost in double overtime to Western 50-44.
Western coach Joe Aihara, who knew Prange for 30 years, described how Prange would have reacted.
“He’d be laughing right now,” Aihara said. “He’d be on us, that this went into double overtime and delayed the whole thing.”
“The whole thing” is the 16-team boys basketball tournament co-hosted by Loara and Garden Grove that started Monday. That the tournament is called The Euclid Extravaganza is a sample of Prange’s humor. The 16 teams are public-school teams, a couple of which might get into the lower shelf of the Orange County Top 25 rankings, but most won’t make the list of teams you find playing in elite events like Mater Dei’s Nike Extravaganza.
Prange died Thursday, Thanksgiving Day. He was 59. No cause of death has been made public.
Prange, an avid walker on the streets of south Orange, was tall and lanky and seemed to be in excellent health.
A large crowd attended Monday’s 3 p.m. game in Loara’s gym. Students and teachers and plenty of alumni were on hand. A photo of Prange’s face was on large cardboard cutouts that were handed out to the fans as they entered the gym, which Prange likely would have found ridiculous and funny.
Loara athletic director Scott Wilson programmed the pregame music with songs that would be found on the pregame lists that Prange created. There was classic soul like Billy Paul’s “Me & Mrs. Jones” and nauseating yet loveable schlock like “I Think I Love You” by The Partridge Family.
“I put it together this morning,” Wilson said. “The ‘Mary Tyler Moore Show’ theme song and all of those other things he would play are on it.”
Wilson said the players were given the choice of playing or not playing Monday.
“We weren’t sure how the kids would respond,” Wilson said. “They knew it would be OK either way.”
Loara senior Markus Toscano, an All-Orange County selection last season, led the decision to play.
“Markus stood up and took leadership of the team,” Wilson said. “He said, ‘He’d want us to play. This is what he trained us for, to go out and do your best.’”
Longtime assistant coach Mohmmad Abudhadwan, said the players were too distraught Monday to talk to anyone outside of the team about how they are dealing with the loss of their coach.
Abudhadwan smiled quickly when asked about Prange’s sense of humor that was known to all who knew hhim.
“He could be dead serious one moment, then make a sarcastic comment the next moment,” Abudhadwan said. “I would be in tears and he would just be looking straight-faced at me. I wouldn’t be able to focus any more.”
Monday’s game was 36-36 at the end of regulation and 40-40 at the conclusion of the first overtime. Western senior guard Keith Davis took off for a fast break layup for the first points of the second overtime and the Pioneers maintained the lead from there.
Davis, who finished with a team-high 19 points, made two free throws with 11 seconds left to seal the win for the Pioneers, who are 2-1; Loara is 1-3.
It had to be difficult for Loara to play loosely, to compete without distraction. Abudhadwan reminded the players before the game what Prange would have instructed them.
“I told them whether he was here or not, he was going to give them the same message,” Abudhadwan said. “Which is, you don’t make excuses, life goes on, you continue to play. The ball bounces your way sometimes, and sometimes it doesn’t bounce your way.”
Loara gave it its best effort for four quarters and two overtimes. That seemed to be the sort of tribute that Prange would most appreciate.