Pilots ready to take flight

Sports playoffs often are called the “second season.”

That couldn’t be more true for Findlay Prep’s boys basketball team.

The Pilots last played Feb. 27, but they will start their postseason run at 3 p.m. Thursday against Montrose Christian (Md.) in the National High School Invitational at Georgetown Prep in North Bethesda, Md.

The game will be televised on ESPNU (320).

“We had to reinvent ourselves in the last month,” Findlay coach Todd Simon said.

The Pilots (34-0), who won the NHSI last season, are ranked No. 1 nationally in several polls, including USA Today. Findlay also won the NHSI in 2009 and 2010.

Simon said the team took about 10 days off after its 102-67 win over Impact Academy in the regular-season finale. The players said it took some time to get back into the swing of things physically, but senior guard Stanford Robinson said the team was ready to go mentally when it began practicing again.

“This is what we’ve been fighting for,” said Robinson, who has signed with Indiana. “We all wanted this national championship. We feel like when we win it, it’ll help everybody individually and as a team. It didn’t really take us mentally too much to get into it, because we all knew that we wanted this, and this is why we came here.”

Findlay defeated Montrose 40-35 in December, and UNLV-bound senior Christian Wood said he’s sure the Mustangs remember the loss.

“We beat them before, and they’re going to come back hungrier than ever and try and beat us,” Wood said. “And we can’t let that happen. We’ve been really tough on our guys, and we’ve been going hard.”

Simon said he expects another close game from Montrose.

“It’s basically a home game for them, right down the street,” he said. “They play a style of play that’s packed in defensively, they run 35 seconds off the shot clock on every possession, so there’s not going to be much margin for error.”

Simon has changed some roles on the team. The 6-foot-11-inch Wood spent most of the season playing in the post, but he will move to small forward for the postseason. And with point guard Nigel Williams-Goss not joining the team until the middle of the day today, Robinson said he has been working at the point.

Williams-Goss played in the McDonald’s All-American game Wednesday in Chicago, and Simon said his senior star hasn’t practiced with the team in almost 10 days.

But Robinson said the team is prepared in case Williams-Goss, who has signed with Washington, doesn’t provide his normal production.

“Everyone has been taking a new role,” Robinson said. “I’m taking a role as the point guard just in case that does happen. And you’ve got Chris Wood moving to the (small forward), and he’s used to playing the (power forward). But he’s always out on the wing, so why not know the position.”

The team passed out national championship T-shirts after the final regular-season win, and Simon said at the time he wasn’t sure the Pilots would put their undefeated season on the line in the NHSI.

But he has changed his tune.

“We knew all along we were going to go,” Simon said. “It’s just part of our deal is competing. We always want to be on the biggest stage. We play everybody we can play.

“We wouldn’t want to miss this, regardless of our record or whether or not it’s smart to play in it. It doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, we’re going to compete.”