BOYS POWER RANKINGS — Crusaders lead the way early in the season

By barstoolfanatics on January 3, 2026 • ( Leave a comment )

Submitted photo – The St. Bernard’s Crusaders are No. 1 in our first Power Rankings of the season.

By Ray Hamill — With a busy month of early-season tournaments over with and conference play set to begin next week, it’s time for the first Humboldt Sports Power Rankings of the season in boys basketball.

This year’s Big 5 is expected to feature a close race that should go down to the final week of action, with the possibility of a two-loss team claiming this year’s championship.

But it’s the Little 4 favorites that have been setting the standard early in the season here on the North Coast.

This year’s St. Bernard’s Crusaders have returned just about the entire roster from last year’s NorCal championship team, and it shows.

Head coach Pat Shanahan not only has an experienced roster, but also arguably the deepest roster in the H-DNL, and it’s a group of players that are playing as a cohesive unit on the court, with everyone recognizing their roles and embracing the team concept.

And that makes the Crusaders the top-ranked team in our first Power Rankings and also the top-ranked H-DNL boys team in the entire North Coast Section, according to MaxPreps.

The McKinleyville Panthers, meanwhile, are No. 2 in our first rankings of the season, followed by No. 3 Del Norte and No. 4 Eureka.

There appears to be little to separate these three Big 5 rivals, all of whom look well capable of winning this year’s conference championship.

The Panthers have struggled recently in terms of wins and losses and have dropped five of their last seven games, but all five of those losses have come against higher ranked teams — including two defeats to St. Bernard’s — and a tough pre-conference schedule should have the Panthers better prepared for conference play.

Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com

Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com

Del Norte, meanwhile, has been the hottest Big 5 team in recent weeks and secured a third pre-conference tournament championship on Saturday night.

The Loggers enjoyed an up-and-down December, including two losses to Del Norte, but head coach Jimmy Rodgers has his players headed in the right direction and if they get hot at the right time this could be their year in what is expected to be a wide-open race for the conference title.

Wednesday’s conference opener at McKinleyville should tell us a lot more about these Loggers.

Rounding out our first Power Rankings of the year are the No. 5 Arcata Tigers.

Head coach Kellen Maynard has a very new-look team this year and as expected there have been some growing pains.

But the Tigers still have the best player in the Big 5 in senior Luke Lemke, and they appear capable of beating anyone on their day.

The question for Maynard and his players is can they find the consistency necessary to win a championship?