CB Titans basketball raises effort with busy summer of training

“We played a full season of games in 11 days”

By Than Acuff

Mike Bacani is bringing back the off-season energy to the Crested Butte Titans boys basketball program after spending the past season in his first year as the head coach. Bacani has been with the program as an assistant coach for years, as well as coaching the middle school boys’ team, and this summer he is providing additional opportunities for his players to develop both as individuals and as a team. In addition to open gyms two days per week, he took the team of one senior, some juniors, some sophomores and a couple of incoming freshmen on the road to some camps for several games on the Western Slope throughout the last two weeks of June.

“For the first time since Brandin was the head coach here, we took on a full summer slate,” says Bacani. 

Open gyms have been a mix of coaching and free play and with the school under construction, Bacani has been hosting the optional workouts at Jerry’s Gym in town hall with anywhere from eight to 10 players showing up, including a couple of incoming freshmen.

“Prior to the camps we spent a good portion of our time going over concepts on offense and defense,” says Bacani.

It all started with three games in one day in Gunnison on Friday, June 20 and then Bacani, assistant coach Ethan Bacani and eight Titans hit the road on Monday, June 23 for a four-day camp at Colorado Mesa University that attracts 147 boys’ and girls’ teams from throughout the state as well as Wyoming and Utah.

“We played teams from Utah, Denver and some league foes,” says Bacani. 

For some perspective, perennial league powerhouse and 2A state title contender Sanford was at the same camp with a plethora of players in attendance.

“People wonder how they’re always competing at that level,” says Bacani. “Well, Sanford had three boys’ teams at the camp.”

After falling to a strong 1A program and getting thumped by a bigger team from Utah, both in size and number of players, the Titans faced 5A Adams City out of Denver. It was during this game that the players and coaches had an epiphany. After going toe-to-toe with Adams City through the first three quarters, Adams City pulled away for a slight win using their deeper bench to help facilitate the victory.

“They were very similar in size to us, only one of their players was maybe an inch taller than our tallest player,” says Bacani. “At the end of the game the boys saw how we can compete because Adams City just played faster and with more energy.”

Following the game, the Titans went on to win some games at the CMU camp embracing what was possible from their game against Adams City.

“That was a turning point for us,” says Bacani.

The Titans then returned home and then got back on the floor last weekend for a series of games at a Western Colorado University camp over two days including a battle with Ouray which gave the varsity with four senior starters fits last season.

“We played them with the same speed and energy from Mesa and it was a four-point game,” says Bacani. “We’re always going to be the smallest team on the floor, but the boys saw we just need to play with energy and speed.”

All in all, the Titans ended up playing 19 games over the course of 11 days.

“Ethan was like, we played a full season in 11 days,” says Bacani.

Results were never the goal of the series of games and Bacani saw plenty from his team as did the players themselves as they look ahead to the upcoming 2025-2026 season.

“Scores aren’t as important as building chemistry and we learned a lot about ourselves,” says Bacani. “Our offense, by in large, looks pretty good but our defense needs some work, we foul a lot. We’re looking at having a really, really young team and we’re just not ready for the speed of varsity yet.”

That said, the summer experience has the players several steps ahead of where they typically are, once they start the season in November.

“It was good to get some of the growing pains out of the way early and have some fun doing it,” says Bacani. “It was nice having a group of kids wanting to put the time in now rather than in November or December.”