The last time basketball players from Heritage Christian School came up to the Last Frontier to participate in the annual Alaska Airlines Classic was two years ago.

Head coach Paul Tait and the team from Northridge, California, were able to experience a true Alaska winter as they arrived in the middle of a typical snowy season.

But with this winter marked by unseasonably warm weather and rain, the team couldn’t really lean on their previous experience when deciding on the appropriate attire to pack.

“We did not bring any umbrellas,” Tait said with a chuckle. “It’s funny. The last couple weeks, we talked about boots and snow jackets and everything else, and then I check the weather about five days ago and I’m like, ‘Hold up a second, let’s make sure we have rain boots and different types of gear.’ But we have Southern California kids, so anything below 65, they start freaking out — so rain or snow, it didn’t matter.”

The Warriors only have three players on this year’s team who made the last trip as sophomores and are now seniors. Star forward and San Jose State University commit Tae Simmons and guard Jesse Tweneboah played in those games. Forward Dylan Shaw, a Saint Mary’s College commit, had suffered an injury in their last game before the tournament, and had to spend the entire trip on crutches.

In Heritage’s 59-36 win over Colony on Thursday in the opening round of the tournament, Shaw led the team with 21 points in his Alaska Airlines Classic debut. Simmons narrowly came in second with 20 points. That total far exceeded the eight points he was held to the last time he was on the West High court, in a 2023 tournament championship loss to Anchorage’s own Grace Christian.

“It’s always incredible coming up here,” Tait said. “We enjoyed our experience last time. We’re just trying to shake off the rust of travel and everything and also know there are a few teams that traveled even farther than us, so it was good to get the first win under our belt.”

Those three returners told teammates who were making the trip to the Alaska Airlines Classic for the first time about how unique of an opportunity it was.

“Just getting out and seeing different experiences,” Tait said. “We did the zoo last time and we’ll do the wildlife observatory Friday, dog sledding on Saturday maybe, just fun stuff.”

He told his wife shortly after they got married that he’d like to come up to Alaska with his team every four to five years to give each generation a chance to experience it — but he didn’t wait nearly as long this time.

Coming to Alaska, Alabama juggernaut gets reprieve from winter snow

Hoover High School last made the trek to the 49th state from Alabama to take part in the Alaska Airlines Classic over a decade ago, in January 2013. That was before Scott Ware was the head coach of the Buccaneers. This year’s trip is a first-time experience for every player on the team and coach on the staff.

“We had a lot of opportunities to play in different places throughout the country, and we kind of held off to see what was best for us, and when this opportunity came up, we wanted to come back,” Ware said. “We heard from the previous staff how good of a tournament it was, so we wanted to make this trip.”

When they committed to compete in the Classic and started making plans, the Alabama powerhouse program had no idea that it’d actually be warmer in Alaska than it was back home.

“It’s actually colder at home in Alabama and more snow than when we left,” Ware said. “It is what it is. We’re just happy to be here. We’ve played from Florida to the Midwest. We’ve been all over and thought this would be a great opportunity.”

There was 6 inches of snow in Orange Beach, Alabama, when they left, which is less than 4 1/2 hours from Hoover by car.

The undefeated Buccaneers brought heavy jackets and boots but didn’t think to bring their umbrellas, which would’ve been more useful.

“It’s good to travel, guys are making lifelong memories and this is a special group of guys we’ve got,” Ware said. “They’ve been special for four years now and we have a bunch of seniors who have accomplished a lot, but when you talk to them, some of the trips we’ve been on have been a bigger thing for them than winning a state championship.”

Hoover is the two-time defending Alabama state champion of the 7A division. It’s the first nationally ranked team to participate in the Classic in nearly a decade and a half, and the first top-10 ranked squad in several decades.

Ware and his team relish the chance to see some of the best competition Alaska has to offer, and they could potentially face two-time defending 4A state champion Bettye Davis East if both teams advance to Saturday’s final.

“It’s good to get out and see how people play and do things around the country,” he said. “Obviously basketball is basketball, but people approach it differently, so just to kind of see different styles throughout the country and the way they approach things is good so that we’ve seen a little bit of everything when we get to the playoffs.”

The Buccaneers are led on and off the court by 6-foot-9, 250-pound senior power forward DeWayne Brown, who is committed to play at the Division I level at the University of Tennessee.

“He’s an incredible kid, he’s an incredible person, obviously has a great skillset in basketball,” Ware said. “He does a little bit of everything for us but what people don’t see is his basketball IQ. It’s off the charts. He takes what the game gives him and plays that way.”

In Hoover’s 69-26 win over Service on Thursday, Brown scored a game-high 20 points in two and a half quarters of action before sitting out the entire fourth quarter. Even though he’s talented and physically gifted enough to take over a game and seemingly score at will, he often kicks the ball out to his teammates when they’re open for uncontested looks.

“It was just always in me to be unselfish and just play basketball the right way and make the right play,” Brown said.

After not attempting any dunks in the first quarter, Brown slammed down a quartet in the second on some alley-oops and fast breaks, which got the crowd excited.

“It just got kind of easy,” he said. “It’s fun hearing the crowd go crazy. It always kind of motivates you to keep going. I feel like once you get the crowd into the game, it makes you play a little bit harder.”

While Brown didn’t join the team until his freshman year of high school, this group has played together since the third grade and it shows in their chemistry on the court.

“Our guys love each other and they’ve been best friends for a really long time,” Ware said. “We’ve didn’t have kids move in from all over the place to form this team. These are Hoover kids, they’ve grown up together, they spend time outside of basketball together. If you see one, you always see four or five of them.”