MOODY: What might have been at Carson

Do you ever play the game "What Might Have Been?" I know I do all the time.

As I watched Manogue beat Bishop Gorman on Thursday, I imagined Carson being there instead of the Miners.

Don't laugh. When you look at the players that have come and gone from Carson to attend other schools in the last four years, the Senators very well could have been a 4A powerhouse the last couple of years.

There's Brennan Hogan, who went from middle school in Carson to Manogue, Matt Nuthall, who was at Carson for one year, and then moved to Reno and ended up at Damonte Ranch. And, last but not least, Andrew Johnson, who transferred to Hug over the summer after starting for the Senators as a sophomore in the 2009-2010 season.

Put those three with Brian Barnes and Chris Steele, and Carson would have had a high-powered offense this year to be sure.

"Hogan's legit," Carson coach Bruce Barnes said earlier this week. "He never enrolled here. I'm beyond the Nuthall thing."

The Johnson matter? Now that's another story. His defection caught the Senators off guard because he had been playing for Barnes the entire summer, and Barnes said the Senators had done a good job in their summer tournaments.

Essentially the Senators played without a true point guard all year, and it showed in the final 7-17 record. Handling the ball was done by committee, and nobody Barnes put there could do what Johnson could do on the floor. In high school basketball, if you don't have a good point guard you aren't going to go very far in postsason.

"This is the first time that I've played with somebody that wasn't comfortable or confident at the point guard," Barnes said. "You go back to Matt Rutledge and Adam Houghton ... you need somebody that can make good decisions and is a calming influence.

"We didn't play anybody else (significantly) at the point during the summer because we had Andrew. I'll take the blame for not playing other people there."

With Johnson, the Senators would have been a solid third and wouldn't have had to fight for a playoff spot the last two weeks of the season.

"You look at our side, two teams (Douglas vs. Manogue) played in the regional championship game," Barnes said. "For everybody on our side, it was four teams going for two playoff spots.

"Our expectations were high after the summer, and then a couple of things went awry. We would have been third place by ourselves (with Andrew). We might have stolen one from Douglas like we did the previous year. I don't know if it (his leaving) changed things drastically, but we would have had a few more wins."

Carson was a victim of the new schedule, maybe more so than a lot of teams. When Carson visited Reed for its opening game, the team had less than 10 practice days together because of all the football players who were on the basketball team. Brian Barnes was the only starter who didn't play football.

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One of the things that bothered me were the pot shots by parents of Carson players leveled at Barnes while the games were in progress this year.

I don't know why parents can't go to a game and just root for their child's team. I'm just so sick and tired of the coach being blamed for a team's downfall. Barnes and Carlos Mendeguia work extremely hard at their craft, and they give a lot of their time. They care about the kids.

Barnes can be tough, but he doesn't play favorites. If you are thin skinned you probably won't do well, because Barnes will let you know when you have made a mistake. There is nothing wrong with that. This is high school basketball folks, and if your son can't take some criticism then he probably shouldn't be out there playing.

I'm not trying to be hurtful here, but Carson's team was loaded with some great kids. But for most, basketball was a second or third sport, and this wasn't really wasn't an ultra talented team. This team played hard throughout the season, but played without patience much of the time.

"There were times when guys tried to do more than they were capable of doing," Barnes said. "It was because of a belief in themselves that they tried to do things."

It was nice to see the Senators, with their backs to the wall, win some critical games down the stretch to get into a third-place tie with Galena and Damonte Ranch. Unfortunately the Senators lost the play-in game against Damonte which ended their season.

I know there are probably some people who would prefer that Barnes not return. I'm not one of those. He was a tough, hard-nosed player in his days at Carson, and he carries that over to his coaching. His teams, at least since I've been here, have been an extension of him on the floor. Every coach you talk to always talks about how hard Carson plays.

That's a testament to Barnes and the kids on the team.