Pueblo 1977-78 Boys Basketball Team

The statistician for the 1977-78 Pueblo High School boys basketball team must’ve been in sports heaven.
According to 1978 newspaper archives from the Arizona Daily Star and Tucson Citizen, the Warriors had two players who averaged triple-doubles during Pueblo’s historic 28-0 state championship season.
Guard Lafayette “Fat” Lever, the state’s player of the year, averaged 20 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists per year. His backcourt mate, Tony Mosley, averaged 11 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists.
No wonder the Warriors went 28-0 and were named the Daily Star’s basketball team of the century.
Lever and Mosley weren’t the only Warriors selected to the 1978 all-city team. Forward Jeff Moore was also a first-team choice; Moore averaged 17 points and shot 54% from the field. What is remarkable is that Pueblo’s 77-78 team did not have a center. Moore, at 6-foot-3, was its tallest starter.
That’s how good coach Roland LaVetter’s state champs were. A fourth Warrior, Pat Adams, was named to the Star’s all-city third team, and Ken Martin was honorable mention. How’s that for a superlative starting five?
Pueblo won back-to-back state championships in 1977 and 1978, and although they cut down the nets, their journeys were not all that similar.
Pueblo went undefeated by an average of 17 points per game. Its closest brush with defeat came in the state semifinals against Phoenix East High School in one of the most nerve-wracking games in LaVetter’s long (26 years) coaching career.
Lever was hobbled with a sprained ankle. Mosley got an elbow in the mouth, knocking a tooth out. Moore had a back injury. To make it worse, Pueblo was unable to get to the ASU basketball arena to get proper treatment for those injuries before the game. A massive rainstorm left many of the Tempe streets flooded, and some blocked to traffic.
Pueblo arrived just 10 minutes before the scheduled tipoff and officials did not delay the start of the game.
LaVetter, an old-school coach, chose to play a four-corners offense. A stall. There was no shot clock in 1978 in college or high school basketball, and LaVetter decided that his injured players would not effectively be able to play an up-and-down game against East for 32 minutes.
The stall worked. Pueblo won 29-28 when Lever made two foul shots with 41 seconds remaining and East missed two final shots.
A day later, Pueblo won the state title, defeating Rincon High School, 70-54.
Pueblo went 28-0, one of just four Arizona “big schools” to go undefeated in the last 50 years, joining East’s 1981 team, Phoenix South Mountain’s 1991 team and Mesa Mountain View’s 1995 champs.