All-Area POY: Atwater sold coach’s vision, led Davis to state championship
2025 Standard-Examiner All-Area Boys Basketball Player of the Year
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- Davis High senior guard Coleman Atwater, the 2025 Standard-Examiner All-Area Boys Basketball Player of the Year, poses for a photo on Monday, March 17, 2025, in Kaysville.
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- Davis High’s Coleman Atwater (1) grips the ball and eyes a pass against Herriman’s David Tanner during the 6A state championship game Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, at the Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City.
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- Davis High’s Coleman Atwater (1) drives toward the paint against Westlake’s Slone Sua in a 6A state quarterfinal Monday, Feb. 24, 2025, at the Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City.
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- Davis High senior guard Coleman Atwater, the 2025 Standard-Examiner All-Area Boys Basketball Player of the Year, poses for a photo on Monday, March 17, 2025, in Kaysville.
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- Davis High’s Coleman Atwater (1) rises to the rim past a Herriman defender in the 6A state championship game Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, at the Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City.
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- Davis High senior guard Coleman Atwater, the 2025 Standard-Examiner All-Area Boys Basketball Player of the Year, poses for a photo on Monday, March 17, 2025, in Kaysville.
KAYSVILLE — In some ways, basketball felt like a dream job for Davis High’s Coleman Atwater.
Rest assured, Atwater — with offers from the University of Chicago and Claremont McKenna College in California — takes the books seriously. But ask any Davis County resident and there’s little debate over where the 6-foot-3 shooting guard can be found after 3 p.m.
“Basketball was the part I wanted to be at every single day,” Atwater said. “I was able to focus on other things during the day and build up whatever emotions I built up in the classroom or outside of basketball and then it was ‘I get to go to basketball today,’ not, ‘I have to go.'”
Atwater and the Darts closed February with an eighth state championship — the second in Chad Sims’ 11 years as head coach — defeating 6A favorite and top seed Herriman 75-66 by trusting themselves as the more level-headed opponent through the final eight minutes.
Atwater is the 2025 Standard-Examiner All-Area Boys Basketball Player of the Year.
One of four seniors, Atwater was instrumental to Davis-Herriman becoming the hottest ticket in town on Feb. 27. All four seniors would certainly identify that 6A title contest, the raucous Huntsman Center and buildup to their season’s most-important game as their favorite memory.
And who could blame them? To truly appreciate the fruits of their labor, though, Sims veers the conversation to the preseason and just how consequential those weeks became.
Sims meticulously chose his team’s early regular-season dates to make his group uncomfortable. The longtime coach wanted Davis to adhere to a tight preseason with small windows between tournaments and non-region opponents.
“Collectively, we’re able to just relax and go play the game,” Sims said.
With a host of guys capable of finding the rim, Sims wasn’t wasting time second-guessing the draw-up when shots didn’t fall. Instead, Sims looked to how, and when, those shots came about depending on when, and how, his defense produced a stop.
Sims tweak man-to-man matchups like flipping switches on a breaker box, studying the effects and recalling such patterns throughout an 11-2 start through the non-region slate.
Atwater uniquely illustrated, and sold, his teammates on trusting those adjustments without spending extra time in practice or the film room. Getting guys to trust and recognize those real-time changes on the court is where Atwater, averaging 21.8 points, 5.0 rebounds, 1.4 assists, and 1.9 steals a night, made a difference during those early preseason dates.
“It was a matter of defensive adjustments that would get us in a flow offensively,” Sims said. “We would start with a certain matchup, we’d mix those up after the first quarter, maybe halftime, and then we’d come out with those defensive matchups and it would translate right over to the offense. Whether we were ahead or behind, we were getting a little bit of a flow and a rhythm.”
By postseason time, Davis had it down.
“It was really ‘OK, here’s who you’re guarding and you’re going to go out and make a play,'” Atwater said. “I trusted (Sims) that he’d make the right adjustments, he’d call the right plays and he’d have the right matchups out there.”
Davis entered the half behind or tied on eight occasions this season, including twice during the playoffs. Close contests or comebacks included Weber twice during the regular season and Layton twice, first avenging their third and final loss on Feb. 4, and again in the 6A semifinals.
The back half of the schedule saw the Darts fall just once more, giving up a 23-point loss at Layton on Jan. 14, which meant a share of Region 1 title honors. Davis earned the No. 2 seed at the 6A state tournament.
“I think it kind of grew on the other guys and they realized we’ve got a chance to win this,” Atwater said. “We’ve got to give it everything we’ve got. We see the seniors, the leaders, doing everything they can and we’ve got to step up to par.”
Someone like Atwater will become increasingly missed as Sims and Davis regroup for the 2025-26 campaign. But Atwater’s contributions will be remembered, and inevitably discussed, when basketball season returns.
“(Atwater) understood what we were trying to do,” Sims said. “Coleman and the seniors could execute on the floor and be the coach on the floor.”
Atwater will serve a two-year mission before narrowing his choice between Chicago and Claremont McKenna for basketball.
Connect with sports reporter Conner Becker via email at cbecker@standard.net and X @ctbecker.
