'Defense travels:' Family pedigree, defense lead Moeller basketball to 19-1 record

Moeller High School has always prided itself on being a brotherhood.

The Men of Moeller have taken that word to a new level during this basketball season.

One night after the Crusaders basketball team clinched the league championship of the Greater Catholic League-South, two of the program’s top all-time players faced each other in Madison Square Garden as the Los Angeles Lakers beat the New York Knicks.

Knick Miles “Deuce” McBride, a 2019 graduate, and 2018 grad Jaxson Hayes of the Lakers were on opposing benches in the latest installment of the historic rivalry.

The night before that game, Moeller beat Elder 44-28 to clinch a share of the GCL-South title, the 24^th in the head coaching career of Carl Kremer.

Moeller enters the homestretch of the regular season with a 19-1 record, and is ranked third in Division I in the Ohio Associated Press state poll.

For Kremer, the brotherhood is a joy to watch.

“Our school prides itself in a family spirit,” Kremer said. “That’s our number one motto. That’s what we believe in as a Marianist high school. It’s fun for me being an old coach. I’ve got three kids who I coached their dads on the team, you’ve got brothers throughout the team. That’s what we want it to be about, pass that tradition down.”

Hayes and McBride have relatives on this year’s team. Hayes’ brother, junior Jonah Hayes and McBride’s cousin, senior A.J. McBride, come off the bench for the Crusaders.

Junior Kingston Land comes off the bench for Moeller. His brother, Maxwell, plays for South Alabama in Division I.

Senior Eric Mahaffey usually starts. His brother, Evan, is a sophomore who has started every game for Ohio State University this season, his first year with the Buckeyes.

“It really helps us,” Eric Mahaffey said. “We look up at them because they played in these type of games and we ask them advice coming in. When we go into the tournament, asking them how we got to play, how we got to do it.”

Eric leans on his brother a lot.

“He tells me a lot,” Eric said. “He gives me advice on how to lead a team. This is my first year leading a team. And he gives me advice on how to finish and how to get my shots.”

Their father, former Miami University star Jamie Mahaffey, just received a heart transplant. A GoFundMe account has been established for the family. Evan recently spoke extensively about the situation in Columbus.

As a senior in 1995, Jamie Mahaffey averaged a career-high 12.6 points and 8.7 rebounds for a team that went 23-7, won the Mid-American Conference regular-season title and knocked off No. 5 seed Arizona in the first round of the NCAA Tournament before falling to Virginia.

Jaxson Hayes and Miles McBride were starters for Moeller’s 2018 state championship team with former University of Cincinnati star Jeremiah Davenport, who is now playing for Arkansas. McBride and Maxwell Land were starters on the 2019 state title team.

They would approve of this year’s Moeller team, which thrives on suffocating defense as it hopes to build for another title run. Moeller allows 38 points per game, coming off allowing only 28 against its archrival Elder. Moeller has allowed 38 points or fewer in five straight contests.

“The one thing is defense travels,” Kremer said. “Even when you’re on the road, if you’re good defensively, it gives you a chance to win. I thought our guys in both games against Elder did a great job defensively, made their looks hard.”

Because of Moeller’s style and schedule, its offensive numbers aren’t eye-popping. Junior Alex Kazanecki averages 13 points per game with a team-high 33 made 3-pointers. He recently announced an offer from Miami University. Mahaffey averages 8.7 points and a team-high 6.1 rebounds. Moeller has five other players averaging four points or more.

“You have to know it’s going to be physical,” Mahaffey said. “It’s going to be a physical game coming in here. You just got to be prepared to be fouled every time you dribble and have the ball.”

Kremer credits assistant coach Ryan Gulley with leading the defense.

“It doesn’t just happen on Friday nights,” Kremer said. “Like all good teams, we spend a lot of time in the film room, we spend a lot of time on the floor working on defensive fundamentals. They’ve bought in. It’s a process. This league has always been about great defensive teams. These teams win a lot of tournament games because they’re not giving up a lot of points. We want to be a part of that.”

Moeller finishes the regular season with GCL games, hosting St. Xavier Friday and playing at La Salle Feb. 16. The Crusaders will find out their postseason bracket Sunday.

A quick look at the four accomplished alumni who are mentoring their current Crusaders this season.

Jaxson Hayes, Los Angeles Lakers

Hayes graduated from Moeller in 2018 and played for the University of Texas his freshman season in college. He averaged 10 points and five rebounds on his way to Big 12 Freshman of the Year status before declaring for the NBA Draft.

The Atlanta Hawks picked Hayes with the eighth overall pick of the 2019 NBA Draft. He played for New Orleans his first four seasons, averaging 9.3 points per game in the 2021-22 season.

This is his first season with the Lakers. He is averaging 11 minutes and 3.5 points per game off the bench. He recently scored 16 points against the Celtics and then 10 against McBride and the Knicks Feb. 3. The Lakers are 27-25 as of Feb. 8, ninth place in the Western Conference.

He and Jonah's father is Jonathan Hayes, who was recently named Moeller's athletic director after a long coaching career which included 15 years with the Bengals. He played football at Iowa.

Maxwell Land, South Alabama

Land plays for the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Ala., a Division I school in the Sun Belt Conference. He started the team’s first nine games this season and averaged 10 points and 3.4 rebounds per game but has not played since Nov. 30.

He transferred there after three seasons at DI school St. Francis (Pa.), where he started all 77 games he played and averaging 11.3 points in his career. He has 961 career points.

Last season, he averaged 12.8 points and 5.4 rebounds per game for St. Francis.

Land averaged 7.7 points for the Crusaders in their 2018-19 state championship season and more than 13 points the following season. His senior year, he was GCL Player of the Year, District Player of the Year, City Player of the Year and Big School Division Player of the Year in Ohio. He was a two-time team captain.

He and Kingston’s father is former Roger Bacon star Eugene Land, who played briefly for the University of Cincinnati.

Evan Mahaffey, Ohio State

The sophomore played for Penn State in the NCAA Tournament last season. This season with the Buckeyes, he has started all 23 games, averaging 5.2 points and 4.3 rebounds a game, plus nearly two assists and a team-high 1.3 steals.

He averaged 15.7 points and 7.1 rebounds his senior season with the Crusaders, the 2021-22 year, when Moeller finished 18-6.

As a senior at Moeller, he was a finalist for 2022 Ohio Mr. Basketball, the GCL Conference Player of the Year, the Ohio Player of the Year by Cincinnati.com and a Division I first-team All-Ohio honoree.

Deuce McBride, New York Knicks

Miles “Deuce” McBride has been getting a bigger role with the New York Knicks in the middle of his third season in the league.

McBride, coming off the bench, has scored in double figures in three straight games and five of the last seven. He had career high games of 19 and 20 points in mid-January.

McBride averaged less than three points per game in his first two seasons and is overall averaging 5.5 for the season.

Tuesday night, he played 31 minutes off the bench and scored 12 points with three assists and three rebounds. He was one of three bench players who saw action for New York, which is 33-18 and fourth place in the NBA Eastern Conference.

McBride was selected in the second round of the 2021 NBA draft with the 36th pick by the Oklahoma City Thunder and then traded to the New York Knicks.

A three-star recruit, he committed to playing college basketball for Bob Huggins at West Virginia. As a sophomore, he averaged 15.9 points, 4.8 assists, 3.9 rebounds and 1.9 steals per game, earning Second Team All-Big 12 honors.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Four Moeller players are relatives of college and NBA standouts