NCS Sophomore of the Year
AIDAN MAHANEY, CAMPOLINDO
Most underclassmen can step on the basketball court without a sense of urgency, no matter how talented they are.
That wasn’t the case for Aidan Mahaney.
Less than halfway through his high school career, the 6-foot-3 Campolindo guard knew that his sophomore season would be one of his last
opportunities to play alongside his brother, Carter, and he made the most of it, taking charge despite
regularly being one of the youngest players on the floor.
“There was definitely huge motivation,” the highly recruited guard said. “At the start of the year, I told Carter and two of the
seniors that the only way you guys are leaving is if we send you out with a ring.”
Over the course of the season, the youngest of the Mahaney brothers averaged 19.4 points, made 44 percent of his 3-pointers, filled in
at point guard when Carter was hurt and averaged over a steal per game for a Cougars team that went undefeated
in the Diablo Athletic League and won a Northern California crown for the second straight year, taking home
the Division I championship.
“Making it to NorCals was bigger for me than winning state my freshman year because that was the last game I’ll ever play with my
brother,” Aidan said.
In that game, Aidan scored just nine points in a 54-49 win at De La Salle, but
played lockdown defense to hold the Spartans’ pair of standout sophomores to just four points apiece.
“The De La Salle game was his defensive highlight,” head coach Steven Dyer said.
As good as he was in his freshman year, Mahaney’s growth on defense made him an even more well-rounded player as a sophomore, something
he credited both to his mentality and to his intense training regimen.
“I’ve been working out with Mike Neal. I go in there five days a week for strength and conditioning, lateral movement, quickness, all of
that,” he explained. “When you get to go up against highly recruited guys, it definitely makes you want
to get up and play.”
The recruiting trail is now a familiar road for Mahaney, having seen Carter accept an offer to Northern Arizona. The Lumberjacks have
also offered Aidan, along with Arizona, Hawaii, San Francisco and Stanford.
There were highlights of all sorts for Mahaney throughout the final season in which he’d have both of his brothers alongside him. Carter
accompanied him in the starting lineup while Noah, the oldest of the three boys, was a mainstay in the crowd.
All three were in the picture as Aidan strung together so many remarkable performances that it would be hard
to pick out a particular marquee game or defining moment.
Watch the Cougars on any night, whether it was before a sparse crowd in an early-season tournament or a rivalry game in front of a packed
house, and the sophomore was going to be involved in almost every key play. He scored 30 to defeat the
tournament hosts in the championship game of the Modesto Christian Holiday Hoops Classic and tallied 26
of his team’s 47 in a grinder of a win over Northgate a week later. Against Miramonte, the team that
spoiled the Cougars’ bid for a perfect league record during his freshman year, he scored 27 in the first
meeting, then went on to hit the go-ahead 3-pointer in the final minutes and making two critical steals
to clinch a 50-48 victory.
The perfect run through league play, punctuated with a 31-point performance n 10-of-12 shooting in an 83-58 romp over Clayton Valley, was
just another excellent part of Campolindo’s 26-6 campaign.
“In the moment, it was just winning games one at a time,” he said. “After, it was pretty nice to look back and be able to send my brother
out with that.”
The Cougars might have been unbeaten in league play for a second consecutive year if not for Aidan’s missed free throws in a 2019 home
loss to Miramonte, but rather than let that moment eat away at him, he used it to improve. Thirty minutes after
that loss, he was on the floor shooting from the line, and that continued commitment to get better, mixed
with his ability to never let the moment get to him, turned him into an 82 percent shooter on foul shots.
“He’s always been a pretty confident kid,” Dyer said. “You could tell the first time he walked into an open gym at Campolindo.”
That confidence continued to show all year, whether Aidan was dealing with double teams and dishing out to teammates or getting open and
knocking down shots himself at a nearly 50 percent clip.
“There were two games this year where I might’ve forced it, and those were the games where I was really upset with myself because I wasn’t
efficient and I wasn’t reading the floor well,” he said.
He never seemed to be forcing any shots during the postseason, where he started off with an 8-of-11 performance from the floor
to beat San Leandro, led all scorers with 29 to
avenge a Gridley Invitational loss to Salesian in the NorCal semifinals and capped it off with stellar
defense to win the NorCal crown over neighboring De La Salle.
The coronavirus pandemic prevented the Cougars from trying to avenge another Gridley loss as it forced Riordan out of the Northern
California Division I Tournament, and it deprived them of a shot at a second straight state crown by
wiping out the state title games, where they would have faced Ribet Academy, but Mahaney was able to
close out his sophomore season with few regrets.
“All that matters was me seeing Carter winning and him seeing me win,” he said. “In my mind, we’re back-to-back state champions, and
we’re going for three next year.”
Other players considered for this award include: De La Salle's Chris Bunch, Salesian's Austin Johnson, St. Joseph Notre Dame's Jaylen
Thompson, Jesse Bethel's Cole Webster and Moreau Catholic's TJ Knight.
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