HIGH SCHOOL BOYS BASKETBALL

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to notice what's new about this Pocatello basketball team. You only need two eyes. His name is Gage Ontiveros, a 6-foot10 junior who towers over opponents like an oak tree, a Burley transfer whose family moved to the Gate City ahead of this school year.

In a 74-45 season-opening win over Burley Tuesday night, the Thunder enjoyed every bit of their new center. Ontiveros tallied 16 points, laying in easy baskets around the rim and sticking back misses from his teammates. It all looked alarmingly easy. "I try to make it easy," Ontiveros said.

For the most part, Pocatello treated this win the same way. Junior guard Julian Bowie posted a game-high 20 points, junior Kesler Vaughan added 19 and thanks to Ontiveros' 16 points and Mason Zweigart's eight-point outing, the Thunder dispatched the Bobcats with little trouble. Pocatello actually trailed after one quarter, 15-12. Then the Thunder outscored the Bobcats 62-30 the rest of the way.

"We didn't shoot the ball extremely well, 4-for-20 on 3s," Pocatello coach Joe Green said. "Ball just didn't go in from 3-point land, but I thought we stuck with it, grinded it out, got to the rim pretty good and made our runs when we needed to."

So much about this Pocatello (1-0) win might have looked familiar. Bowie did his thing, knocking down midrange jumpers and getting to the rim and doing most whatever he likes on offense. Vaughan sprayed home a pair of triples. Krue Hales didn't score, but he played energetic defense and secured key rebounds, a valuable presence in the Thunder's laissez faire style of offense.

Then there was Ontiveros, who stands out the way a skyscraper in a cornfield would. For Poky, the best part about his game is that his height isn't the best part of his game. In Tuesday's game, he showed adept touch around the rim, using his lanky frame to lay in easy baskets and deter Burley players from foraying into the paint. He didn't block many shots in this one, but that's almost the point. He discouraged enough Bobcats from even trying.

It's something new for this Poky team, which lacked a true interior presence last season. Heck, it would probably be something new to most teams in the state. "We haven't really had a 6-10 kid. I've never had a 6-10 kid," Green laughed. "He's just so solid. He's got good hands and good feet around the rim. He's gonna be a huge addition to what we have here."

Then there's the part of Ontiveros' game that Green also noticed in this win: "He's also good just with his back to the basket. You give them the ball and get a jump hook. He brought it tonight. He played well. I was proud of him. For his first game at Poky, he played really well."

The other new thing about this Thunder team might be this: They have expectations. Last season, they made a deep 4A state playoff run, advancing to the championship game, where they fell to powerhouse Hillcrest. That was a charmed season, a magical run, but many of that year's players have graduated: Guard Ryan Payne, forwards Matt Christensen and Hunter Killian and Jaxon Williams.

That leaves it up to the Thunder's returners — namely Bowie, Vaughan and Hales — to try to make another trip to that title game. "We remember that game every day," Bowie said, "but we're still trying to go game-by-game, trying to win the district first and then see if we can go to the state tournament."

To do that, they might need to improve on defense — at least according to Green. Poky held Burley to just 45 points, and the Bobcats shot just 38%, and they lost 13 turnovers. But the Thunder's head man thinks they can get better.

"I thought we were average defensively," Green said. "Sometimes we overpressure and give straight line drives. We need to stay in front of the ball a little bit more and gave up some things. We weren't talking enough. I didn't love our defensive effort, but there was flashes of it. We just gotta put four quarters of that together."

Here's the good news for the Thunder on that front: They have a 6-10 guy on the roster. That's not a bad start.