At 6 o’clock in the morning Friday, Palo Verde coach Anthony Smith sent a text message to his top-seeded team that went beyond a wake-up call ahead of the 3A quarterfinal game against visiting No. 9 Gilbert Christian come nightfall.
“I went Sandlot on them,” Smith said. “I was like, ‘Heroes get remembered but legends never die.’ When you make it that far (potential championship), and you’re able to do those type of things, people will never forget you.
“We have an unforgettable team already, but we’re trying to make sure we get that written in stone that people will never forget the 2026 Palo Verde Titans.”
His senior playmaking point guard Kameron Pippen performed in the fourth quarter in the 66-60 win over Gilbert Christian as if he had a chisel starting to work on that stone.
In the final period, Pippen scored 10 of his team-high 22 points — eight of them at the free-throw on an 8-of-9 performance.
Palo Verde coach Anthony Smith with his senior playmaking captain Kameron Pippen, who had 10 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter of the 66-60 victory for the No. 1 Titans over No. 9 Gilbert Christian. Palo Verde advances to the 3A semifinals against No. 4 Seton Catholic next… pic.twitter.com/z8DZcaSnG1
— Javier Morales (@JavierJMorales) February 21, 2026
“I’ve got a lot of young people (as teammates), so I’ve got to keep the energy going,” Pippen said of his game-turning fourth quarter. “At that time, I felt like I was that guy who needed to go to work, and I did.”
Strong on the mind of Pippen and his teammatees is their 69-46 loss to Pusch Ridge in last year’s 3A state championship at Phoenix’s Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
The Titans (21-6) will return to the Madhouse on McDowell on Friday for a 9 a.m. semifinal game against No. 4 Seton Catholic (25-6).
“Last year, we came all the way, (but) came up short,” Pippen said. “This game (against Seton Catholic) is another step to glory.”
The victory over Gilbert Christian was a battle of the Titans’ interior game against the Knights’ perimeter prowess with their barrage of 3-pointers.
Gilbert Christian (16-12) converted 16 of its 19 made field goals from beyond the arc while Palo Verde did not make a 3-pointer.
The Knights finished 16 of 35 from 3-point range and 3 of 10 from inside the arc.
Palo Verde tried only one 3-pointer, which is unfathomable in this day and age when youngsters want to be the next Stephen Curry. The Titans were 18 of 41 overall from the field.
“We learned in the state championship last year, that we’re not going to try to shoot with you — we’re going to play our game,” Smith said of the mindset of avoiding the need of shooting 3-pointers. “We think that’s going to work. It’s one of those things the boys trusted me and kept going with it.
“It’s easy to feel that pressure of, ‘Oh, we’re down. We need to shoot that 3.’ We don’t. We just need to play basketball. We have tough kids on our team. That’s our gameplan. That’s what we’re going to do.”
Gilbert Christian outscored Palo Verde 48-0 from 3-point range.
Palo Verde dominated the Knights 36-6 inside the arc.
The difference: because of the Titans’ relentless attack in the lane, they drew an abundance of fouls (30 of them) that led to numerous free throw attempts.
Palo Verde was 30 of 43 from the free-throw line (led by Pippen’s 14-of-16 performance), while Gilbert Christian was 6 of 8. The Titans committed only 10 fouls.
“We made it a point today that we didn’t want to live and die by the 3; we wanted to let the other team do that,” Smith said. “We wanted to grind it out and get a bunch of 2s and that’s what we did.
“For us to go out there and have a gameplan and execute it, it’s always a great thing for your team.”
A key stretch was after Palo Verde took a 27-14 lead following Ethan Graves’ putback with 4:41 left in the first half.
Three 3-pointers by Huck Lang in the last 3:42 enabled Gilbert Christian to keep the game within striking distance at halftime, trailing 32-23. Lang had five 3-pointers in the first half, six in the game.
Gilbert Christian started the second half with an 8-0 run that included 3-pointers by Kamari Stanbury and Jacob Jensen that cut the lead to 32-31 with 4:25 remaining in the third quarter.
Gilbert Christian started the fourth quarter making two 3-pointers to take a 47-45 lead with 6:55 left.
A shot from beyond the arc by Lang with 5:26 remaining put the Knights ahead 52-51.
The Titans scored eight unanswered points, four each by brothers Kamaiu Ortiz and Rashad Ortiz, to take control of the game. Kamaiu’s strong move to the basket put Palo Verde ahead 59-52 with 2:31 left.
Rashad Ortiz had 15 points and Kamaiu Ortiz finished with nine.
Kristian White also had 15 points and Graves finished with five.
Pippen mentioned a difference maker for Palo Verde is its balance.
“You’re able to throw lobs to people; you have people who can shoot off the dribble,” Pippen said. “It’s fun. You can trust everything. Running our sets, everybody can do something. All of us can guard. All five of us can guard, so it’s great.”
A 3-pointer by Gilbert Christian’s Pierson Scott cut the lead to 59-57 with 1:57 left.
The Knights missed their next four shots, including three from 3-point range.
Pippen went 3 of 4 from the line while Kamaiu Ortiz (seven points in the fourth quarter) and Rashad Ortiz each went 1 of 2 to put the Titans ahead 64-57 with 16.2 seconds left.
Gilbert Christian’s last gasp was a 3-pointer by Ben Rozier with 10.6 seconds left, but Pippen then broke free from would-be foulers and found White for a dunk to put an exclamation point on the victory.
Now only two games away from earning the first state championship in Palo Verde’s history, Pippen and his teammates are not about to get distracted from their ultimate goal.
“It’s not over,” Pippen said. “It’s not over. That’s all I’m going to say. It’s not over.”
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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon. He became an educator in 2016 and is presently a special education teacher at Sunnyside High School in the Sunnyside Unified School District.
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