In his first year as head coach of the St. Mary’s boys basketball team, Jared Pulver inherited a roster that had no returning starters and few players with varsity experience.

The only familiarity that he had with the program was the four varsity returners — Kent David, Nolan Hensman, TJ Flowers and Chris Kranenburg — when he watched them play in a few games that he attended as a spectator.

Pulver’s main goal after moving over from the South Medford program was to imprint his vision of how he wants a basketball team to play, and the Crusaders offered that opportunity as a team just waiting to take advantage of its chance in the spotlight.

A fellow new face to the program, senior transfer Cannon Anderson, helped anchor those plans with his “passion for basketball” and experience after playing in the Class 3A state championship the past three seasons.

“As a coach, he does not do a lot of things that you don’t want him to do,” Pulver said about Anderson. “And he’s a basketball junkie, so he understands what you want him to do and so he rarely is making mistakes in terms of his decision-making or running an offense.”

After he transferred from Cascade Christian over the summer, Anderson instantly bought into Pulver’s vision for the Crusaders and helped accelerate a new regime at St. Mary’s.

As a result, St. Mary’s finds itself 11-3 in Far West League play — good for third place entering Tuesday’s crosstown rivalry matchup with top-ranked Cascade Christian. Tipoff is at 7 p.m. in the Crusaders’ gym. 

“When (Pulver) came in, it was just work from Day 1,” said Anderson. “We’re always gonna try to be the hardest working team on the court and just hustle.”

“That was the vision,” he added. “We have to work for everything because it wasn’t going to be given.”

The senior guard led by his effort and mentality in the early portion of the season, showing an undeniable scoring ability. In December, he exuded confidence and lead his teammates at the Westside Winter Jam in Tigard against De La Salle North Catholic and Westside Christian, who are both near the top of Class 3A standings.

“When your leader and your point guard doesn’t back down from anybody, that’s just contagious,” said Pulver, whose team is 13-9 overall after facing a challenging early schedule. “He’s a confident kid, not cocky, just like I said before. He’s not afraid to carry a lot on his shoulders, and I think that confidence wears off on our other guys.”

“In short, he took a lot of pressure off those guys,” added the coach, “both in what he does on the floor, but also in terms of allowing them to slide down a level, in terms of what they’re expected to do on the floor to help carry the team.”

That heavy workload is something that Anderson carries proudly, playing nearly the entirety of each game and initiating most of the offense with a season average of 16.3 points, 4.5 rebounds and 4.4 assists.

Standing at 5-foot-10 and 160 pounds, Anderson has brought a hard-nosed style on both sides of the floor, mounting aggressive drives to the rim and taking the hardest defensive assignment on the perimeter.

In a short amount of time, that knack for getting buckets and competitiveness has endeared Anderson to his new teammates.

“He often makes the most difficult shots,” said Kranenburg, who is one of the team captains with Anderson. “He probably plays the most and he’s rarely tired and he still always brings his ‘A’ game offensively and defensively, and there’s never really a moment where he seems out of it.”

“When you have one guy that brings up that type of intensity, the whole team gets brought up as well,” he added. 

Perhaps Anderson’s best stretch with St. Mary’s came between Jan. 22-28, when he was awarded Player of the Week honors by the Oregon School Activities Association.

In that week, the Crusaders won two games on a back-to-back that featured Anderson dropping 23 points in a 65-46 victory over Coquille and then ringing up 33 points for a 88-34 win against Glide on 12-of-13 shooting from the field.

Even with his individual spotlight, it was also around that time that he felt St. Mary’s began to turn a corner in league play.

“As much as I love that Player of the Week award, it just shows how much our team is starting to mesh and get better,” he said. “It showed that we can all do our roles and we started to fit in better.”

“Especially over the last portion of league, I feel like we’ve been playing well as a team,” added Anderson, whose team has won seven of its last eight games. “We have been able to adjust to a lot more stuff as the younger guys are seeing more reps.”

With the senior’s load being slowly lightened, Pulver has been excited to see Anderson lean on his teammates and learn their tendencies, which was a goal at the beginning of the year.

“We’re encouraging him to trust his teammates, too,” said Pulver, “and I think that’s evolved over the course of the season, for sure.”

Slowing relinquishing his touches is something that hasn’t bothered Anderson, who has enjoyed seeing his teammates blossom.

“We are just a young team,” he said. “It was hard at the beginning, but I feel like as the season goes on, there’s just more trust being built between all of us.”

Along with the process of growth, scoring help has appeared with sophomore Tai Zimmerman averaging 10.4 points and junior CJ Seggelink averaging 8.8 points and 1.9 steals.

The rest of the main rotation consists of Kranenburg, Hensman, Flowers and Jax North filling up different needs for the Crusaders, especially on the defensive end where St. Mary’s is often smaller than its opponents but has been willing to work twice as hard to get the job done.

The morale around the team has only been boosted by Anderson’s professionalism, with trust and accountability being greatly appreciated by a group that has otherwise played together for years but maybe not granted as much responsibility as in this season.

“He always makes us end things on a positive note,” said Kranenburg. “I just feel like we never really end a practice or a game angry with one another. People are obviously frustrated with outcomes, but he makes sure that it is never about another player or coach or anything like that.”

With him setting a strong example for Pulver’s vision, Anderson has his eyes set on the postseason as St. Mary’s enters the final regular-season game locked into the No. 3 spot of four playoff bids from the FWL and 18th in the 3A state power rankings.

Throughout his lone season with the Crusaders, he has seen them hang with some of the strongest teams in 3A and believes their best is yet to come.

“We were not able to finish those games earlier this season,” he said, “but we have matured, so I think we can really finish games out now.”

“Our goal for the rest of the season is to get to Coos Bay and finish in the Elite Eight, which would be huge for this program.”