Franklin’s varsity men’s basketball team is back on the court this year, coming off of the 2023-2024 season where they were just two spots away from making the Oregon 6A playoffs — the closest the team has gotten to the playoffs since the 2018-2019 season. With their most recent winning season and playoff appearance coming in that 2019 season, the last few years have offered challenging competition on the court and the team has finished these past few seasons well under .500 — meaning they have lost more games than they have won.
From last year’s varsity team, only three of the 10 players have returned this season: seniors Trey Owens and Zach Smith and sophomore Emiliano Lazcano-Villanueva. Despite having a team made up of mostly new faces, Franklin has seven seniors in their 10-man squad. Senior guard Jordi Beeler claims it’s a tight-knit group of seniors: “All the seniors have been playing together since middle school, so our chemistry is very good. And there’s almost no skill gap among the seniors so the practices are very competitive.”
The 10-man roster marks Franklin as having the smallest roster out of the nine Portland Interscholastic League (PIL) teams, only being tied with Benson Polytechnic High School. Owens, who’s a senior guard and one of two captains of the team, doesn’t see their small roster as a problem. “I think we have 10 guys that can all play, all go out and show up in their big moments, and do their job and play their role,” states Owens. The small roster still has its potential downsides, though, as he also says, “In practice, we don’t always have enough numbers to get a good 5v5 in, and if we’re missing someone it could be a bit tough.”
With a new roster and a goal to improve, Owens says, “We’ve just been focusing on taking each game one at a time and focusing on what’s coming next. In past years, we’ve had more of a focus on the season as a whole, but, right now, we’re just going one [game] at a time, watching, filming, and studying teams.”
Franklin currently sits at 46th in the Oregon 6A rankings and eighth in the PIL, but the season is just starting and they still have big aspirations for the end of the winter. Owens claims the playoffs are still in their sights, saying, “Obviously, the goal is to make the playoffs and get a good spot in the PIL where we’re competitive and competing with each team.” Aside from their season-long goals, Beeler has a simpler goal, one that’s often felt throughout Franklin: “All I want to do is beat Cleveland.”
Despite losses, Franklin has done a good job of staying competitive in their games. Their current — as of Jan. 21 — 2-8 record this season may not give someone the whole picture of the skill level of the team as most of the games have been close-fought, coming down to only a few plays.
The leader of this team is head coach Marc Grassman. Grassman is in his third year as the Franklin varsity head coach after previously coaching as an assistant varsity coach and junior varsity (JV) coach. “He loves to play fast, push the pace, and apply a lot of pressure,” describes Beeler about his coach. “He’s definitely a players’ coach and always wants our input on things.”
Whether you’re going to a game just to hang out with your friends or really love basketball, I think everyone should come out to support the Franklin men’s basketball teams this season. As both teams compete in the southeast rivalry, an especially important game to watch the varsity team play is on Jan. 29 against Cleveland. I’d also suggest coming out for their upcoming home games on Feb. 4 against Jefferson High School and Feb. 7 against Lincoln High School.
