Sophomore guard Sterling McClanahan assumes bigger role as LPC men’s basketball maximizes its potential
Preseason featured some spirited practices for the Hawks men’s basketball team. That’s in part because of sophomore guard Sterling McClanahan. One of the team’s best scorers, he played with the starters, who wore black jerseys in practice.
And when they dominated the backups, who wore white jerseys, McClanahan was one of the loudest trash talkers.
“When we get going back and forth it gets intense, you know. I can’t even repeat it to you, that can’t go on there,” freshman Coby Christensen says chuckling, who played on the white team after returning from injury.
Guard Elijah Mobley, another returning sophomore and McClanahan’s co-star on the black team, said it’s more than just wanting to win. They need to win.
“It’s crazy because when he starts talking trash it gets me going,” Mobley said. “We both never want to get cooked. Two of the most competitive people on this team, me and Sterling.”
But after practice, McClanahan and Christensen head home to their apartment. Over dinner, often with other teammates, they watch film and discuss everything from basketball to the future. Christensen, who considers himself a bit of a culinary expert, said they get down in the kitchen.
But more importantly for Christensen, who relocated from Southern California to play for Las Positas, these times give him the sense of family and togetherness he needs being away from home.
So, on the court in practice, McClahanan cooks Christensen. At home, McClanahan cooks with him.
“Besides basketball,” Christensen said. “You know, we talk about everything. So that’s kind of like for me, especially being so far from home, it gives me that home feel.”
The Hawks have talent. The returning players have postseason experience, though just one game as they were upset in the first round last March. The new players give them a boost of size, athleticism and depth. They have plans to not only make the 2025 playoffs but to go far. Maybe even to the state tournament.
Las Positas has started the season looking like a team on a mission. The Hawks opened the season with 15 consecutive wins. They ranked No. 3 in California in the Dec. 30 rankings by the California Community College Men’s Basketball Coaches Association.
They’ve dominated, too, winning by an average of 23.9 points per game. Heading into its showdown with No. 1-ranked City College of San Francisco, the Hawks were the fifth highest-scoring JUCO team in California at 88.8 points per game. They also ranked No. 12 on defense, where they have significantly improved, allowing an average of 64.9 points per game.
But to do that, the Hawks will need to maximize every ounce of their ability. They need to harness their talent and experience. They will need composure. They will need to stay together through the adversity that’s sure to come.
That’s why they need McClanahan to lead. Something his life to this point has groomed him to do.
McClanahan has stepped into that role.
“I think it’s his experience, his composure, I think his demeanor,” Giacomazzi said. “I think they trust him.”
Last season left a sour taste in the mouths of the returners. Los Medanos ruined their season in the first round of the Norcal Regionals, beating the Hawks in their own gym. For many of them, this comeback feels personal.
They had months to digest their failure, reliving what went wrong over and over. Figuring out what it would take to maximize their potential. McClanahan looked inward and concluded he needed to do more.
McClanahan played all 29 games last season. He averaged 11.3 points, which was third-highest on the team, and 4.1 rebounds with 1.2 steals per game.
“I’m working on ball handling and just staying composed with the basketball,” said McClanahan, a 19-year-old Liberal Arts major from Fairfield, California. “Working on my shot, too, and being quicker on my feet.”
STEPPING UP: In his second season, Sterling McClanahan, taking a shot against San Mateo, has been a key cog to what is shaping up as one of the best teams in the history of the program. (Photo by Jakob Arnarsson/The Express)
He knew he would have a bigger role as a returning sophomore. That he would be a leader and captain coming back. It required tapping into the leader within.
“I felt like he would get down on himself,” Mobley said. “He was very quiet and I feel like this year he’s more outgoing. He’s more involved with the team. He just wants to do whatever it takes to win on and off the court. … He knows what’s best for us basketball-wise.”
McClanahan said he learned his leadership skills from his father, Melton.
“He’s always shown me how to be a leader and speak out and just help my teammates so we can win,” McClanahan said of his dad. “Taught me how to make sure I know what’s going on and what to say, how to help.”
He’s been surrounded by examples. His father runs his own business. His mother, Keely, is an accomplished accountant. His oldest brother, Nate, has been in the Air Force since McClanahan’s youth.
With all these examples in his life, he aspires to be most like his grandfather.
Booker McClanahan.
Grandparents are most kids’ connection to where they came from. They give perspective and guidance. People hold onto every word, hoping for some revelation about how to be better based on the fact that they know what’s best for them.
For McClanahan this is important.
“He’s like the backbone of our family,” he said. “He’s so wise and has so many experiences and stories to tell. … That’s who I aspire to be, for sure.”
The duty of leadership has been all around him. It was nothing to take on the responsibility. He has picked up a certain aspect of leadership, known as KYP — know your personnel.
“It really depends on who you’re speaking to,” McClanahan said. “If you have somebody who’s maybe a little more low spoken and he’s not as aggressive, you might not want to come to him with the loud, you know, the cussing and stuff like that. You might want to come with positive, happy feedback. There’s also times where, you know, you have a hotheaded player where you kind of have to match the same energy. So I’m a little bit of both.”
Sometimes, McClanahan needs to remember to bring it back down — a temperament he is still trying to master.
“I can just get angry pretty fast. If somebody I’m playing with is not, like, on the same page as me, they might see a side that, you know, is a little more aggressive, you know, So it really just depends.”
Driving his leadership is an obsession with winning. He is willing to sacrifice to win.
He said he understands he may be doing that at Las Positas.
This level of college basketball is full of players trying to make it to the next level. Often, players believe they have to put up big numbers to get seen. High-scoring games, being the go-to guy — that’s how they get to Division I.
The Hawks will need scoring from McClanahan. His past history suggests he could carry a larger offensive load.
He caught fire in a blowout win over Lassen. He made eight 3-pointers while scoring a career-high 34 points.
McClanahan’s game has changed because he has changed. He’s adapted to playing college ball and has found the ins and outs, after his freshman year here at Las Positas.
“His body’s changed,” coach Giacomazzi said about the 6-foot-3, 190-pound guard. He’s gotten bigger, stronger, faster. I think his off-ball defense has gotten better. I think he will continue to improve on on-ball defense. But those are the two main areas. Everything else he’s been developing and gotten a lot better at. He’s better across the board.”
FAMILY FIRST: Sterling McClanahan with (from left to right) his father, Melton, his mother, Keely, his brother Nate and his grandfather Booker. (Photos courtesy of the McClanahan family).
But on this team, Elijah Mobley is the go-to guy. He is the leading scoring and dominant playmaker. And what Las Positas will often need from McClanahan are the little things that make the difference between winning and losing.
President Ronald Reagan once said, “The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.”
Sometimes that may be McClanahan projecting calmness to get his team to settle down. Sometimes that may be him spreading the ball around so his teammates remain engaged. Sometimes that may be speaking up in the huddle or getting into Mobley’s head to bring the best out of him.
Sometimes that may mean him not shining.
“It doesn’t always have to be points per game,” Giacomazzi said, “but it could just be more efficient and have more responsibility in terms of team cohesion and connectivity from player to player. I think he’s done a good job of that so far and I think he’ll continue to do that.”
McClanahan’s support of Christensen is proof of his willingness to sacrifice. The freshman guard is expected to be key to the Hawks’ long-term success this season.
Christensen was one of the best high school 3-point shooters in California as a senior at Palm Desert High. He addresses one of the team’s weaknesses from last season.
“I would say we needed to work on shooting,” Mobley said.
The faster Christensen can produce, the better off the Hawks will be. But more shots for Christensen likely means fewer for McClanahan.
Yet, McClanahan has taken the freshman under his wing this season to show him the ropes of college-level ball. The two are already thick as thieves.
“He’ll show you how to do it and kind of walk you through it,” Christensen said about McClanahan. “He’s just a leader. No matter what it is, he’s going to show you and tell you.”
Christensen said he also admires McClanahan’s stability on and off the court.
“He’s really just taught me how to stay grounded.”
McClanahan said he is willing to sacrifice because he believes his team winning will deliver the same reward as him shining.
“I think a leader has the qualities where people want to follow that person and do what they’re doing,” Giacomazzi said. “To do the right things based on what they’re seeing this person do.”
Not everyone has this quality.
Winning is so important because of the losses McClanahan has endured. He still remembers the heart-breaking losses at Vanden High. His senior year, he made a pair of free throws to send the game into overtime in the Division II Regional final. But his team lost to San Joaquin Memorial in overtime, ending his dreams of a state championship.
One spring later, he had his heart broken again. McClanahan played well in the defeat to Los Medanos, making three of his four 3-pointers. But it wasn’t enough to prevent getting upset by Los Medanos and prematurely ending the Hawks’ season.
The losses on the court are not the only ones driving McClanahan. In 2017, he lost his older cousin Terrell. He has a tattoo on his arm bearing his name. It’s an absence he has felt more since coming to LPC.
“So losing him,” McClanahan said, “… when I was younger, it kind of didn’t really resonate with me. Until, I’ll say, when I got to college and I was living on my own. I was kind of having questions and wanted to have conversations with my older cousin. And not having them sucks. But, I got my other family. We’re all kind of still recovering from his loss.”
He has to win for Terrell.
As a team, they play much faster and more aggressively. It began with the intensity of practice. This team spent all summer looking forward to a chance to redeem themselves. McClanahan was central to setting the tone of this season.
He said it won’t work if everyone doesn’t buy in. That’s where he thinks the team falls short. That’s why he constantly reminds his team to put in the work now for something great later.
“There’s no days off,” McClanahan said. “Like, we can’t miss any days. We need to get better — we need to get better every single day. … If you work hard for these eight months, you’re going to have something good to show. We’re going to have a banner. We’re going to have people going to different colleges and people getting recruited.”
TOP PHOTO: Sterling McClanahan helped lead the Hawks to its greatest start in program history — 15-0. (Still from video by Camille LeDuc/ The Express)
Camille Leduc is the editor-in-chief of The Express. Follow her on X, formally Twitter, @CLeduc7603.
