Basha Is First in Arizona and Liberty at Four Gets a Rematch

The 2026 SPIN Arizona Top 10

Basha of Chandler Gets the Top Line, and It Starts Up Front

Basha won the AIA Open Division championship in December and returns most of the roster that did it. That is usually enough, and it is the only uncomplicated call on this board.

The Bears finished 12-1. The one loss came to Hamilton on Oct. 24, and Basha answered by taking the title game 34-7. Head coach Chris McDonald has Jaden Baldwin back at receiver and Noah Roberts back at running back, both on our All-American Watch List for 2026.

The best of them plays a position nobody writes about. Jake Hildebrand is a 2025 All-American, an Arizona State commit, and by our evaluation one of the best offensive linemen in the country, not just the desert. At 6-foot-6 and 290 pounds he is the highest-ranked offensive line commit Arizona State has taken this century, chosen over Oregon, Texas A&M and Utah. Programs here do not usually keep a tackle like that for a senior year.

The Bears sit 18th on the SPIN National Top 50.

Hamilton of Chandler Is Second, and Roye Oliver III Is Why

The top three on this board all play in Chandler. That is not a quirk of our ranking, it is the state.

Hamilton went 11-1, handed Basha its only loss 28-12, and carried the No. 1 seed into the Open Division bracket. Injuries then took the Huskies out in the semifinals against Chandler, 30-17, and the title drought reached 13 years. Two straight seasons have now ended one game short of the final.

Roye Oliver III is a 2025 All-American and a USC commit, and he is the reason Hamilton is second rather than fourth. As a sophomore he caught 92 passes for 1,839 yards and tied the Arizona single-season record with 29 touchdown catches, added two punt returns for scores, and won Arizona Gatorade Player of the Year. Then he reclassified from 2028 to 2027, which means he signs in December and enrolls at USC in January, and the state gets him for one more fall instead of two. He is the most explosive producer on the SPIN Out West board. The recruiting services do not have him rated as high as his production says he should be, and our boards carry that split honestly: Oliver leads Arizona on what he has done, not on what he is projected to become.

Pair that with quarterback Jaxson Sculley and Hamilton has the best skill combination in Arizona.

Chandler and Will Mencl Are the Reason This Board Could Look Wrong by Labor Day

Chandler is third at 10-3, and Chandler has the best quarterback prospect in America in its huddle.

Will Mencl committed to Oregon on April 22 and is the No. 1 quarterback in the 2027 class per Rivals. As a junior he completed better than 70 percent of his passes for 3,815 yards and 33 touchdowns against five interceptions, added 741 rushing yards and 17 more scores, and accounted for 50 touchdowns in all. He played in the Navy All-American Bowl in January. Receiver Jai Jones, who caught 54 balls for 922 yards and 10 scores as a junior, is committed to Wisconsin over Arizona and California.

First-year coach Ty Wisdom took the Wolves past rival Hamilton in the Open semifinals before losing the final 34-7 to Basha at Mountain America Stadium in Tempe. That scoreline is the argument against Chandler and we are printing it, not hiding it. They get Basha again to open the year.

Where SPIN Splits From Arizona's Own Board

Below the Chandler three, three gaps are worth printing.

Desert Edge of Goodyear is fifth here and eighth on High School On SI. The Scorpions went 11-1 and lost a perfect season in the 5A quarterfinals, 13-10, to a No. 9 seed in Desert Mountain. Quarterback Blake Roskopf and running back Byron Brandon are both back. Desert Edge plays 5A, and 5A gets docked by reflex. This one does not.

Mountain View of Mesa and Brophy College Prep sit within two spots either way. Noise.

The two real omissions are Pinnacle, ninth on High School On SI, and Casteel, twelfth and the defending 6A champion. Casteel is the harder one to defend: the Colts won a state title, return quarterback Tee Smith, and are not in our ten. This board locked on Aug 6 with Casteel outside it, and a board that locks stays locked until the field moves it. If the Colts are wrong to be off, they will be back on by Labor Day and we will say so.

Arizona Answers Starting Aug. 27

Nobody has to argue long. The Fiesta Bowl High School Showdown opens its television slate Thursday, Aug. 27 with Red Mountain at Casteel, per the Fiesta Sports Foundation. Brophy College Prep hosts Hamilton the same night, Centennial of Peoria travels to ALA Queen Creek, and on Saturday, Aug. 29, Basha hosts Chandler in a rematch of the Open final at 7:30 p.m. local on ESPN.

Then comes Labor Day weekend, and the state goes looking for out-of-state teams to answer for all of it. Hamilton hosts Arbor View of Nevada. Liberty hosts Corner Canyon of Utah, which is its own section below. The other three travel: Basha to Orange Lutheran, Centennial of Peoria to Servite to face former Chandler coach Rick Garretson, and ALA Queen Creek north to Lehi, Utah.

Five games, five chances to make this board look cowardly.

We drew that line in July and we published the numbers it moved. In three weeks Peoria gets to argue with it.

Liberty of Peoria at Four, and the 31 Points It Is Still Carrying

The Massey model behind On3's state list has Liberty first in Arizona. High School On SI has them third and calls that case not ridiculous.

Fourth is right, and it has less to do with what Liberty was than with what it lost.

The Lions went 10-2, won the Open Division in 2023 and 2024, and lost the 2025 semifinal to Basha 19-16, four points from a third straight final. What made that team work was a defense that was the best in Arizona, and most of it graduated. Paz St. John, Hudson Dunn and safety Zeth Thues were the spine of it, and all three are gone: St. John to Boise State, Dunn to Minnesota, Thues to Arizona State. Thues is the one who stings. He transferred in from Saguaro, won an Open Division title in his first year in Peoria, and left as an All-American after 49 tackles, 8.5 for loss and four interceptions. High School On SI expects the unit to still be stout. Stout is not what Liberty was. Braxton Huynh, a San Diego State commit, is the returning piece.

Liberty is also carrying a scoreline. Corner Canyon of Draper, Utah, beat the Lions 45-14 last September. Liberty was the best team in Arizona at the time and it left with a 31-point black eye the whole state wore for a year. Utah has not let go of it and neither, judging by the schedule, has Peoria.

Corner Canyon Comes to Peoria on Sept. 4 With a Different Roster

The team walking into Peoria is not the team that did it.

Corner Canyon replaced 14 starters. Eight were all-state in the Deseret News 6A picks, six on the first team, and two of those six were All-Americans: tackle Esun Tafa and cornerback Joaquin Rodriguez. Quarterback Helaman Casuga went with them, and so did 3,487 passing yards and 37 touchdowns. Casuga was the Polynesian High School Football Player of the Year and is at Texas A&M now. So did running back Weston Briggs. So did Kai Meza, who caught 64 balls for 1,074 yards and made the same inaugural Hispanic Football Hall of Fame All-America class as Thues. That list had five names. Two played for these two programs last season, and neither plays in this one. And so did Eric Kjar, 112-10 in nine seasons with six state titles, a Utah-record 48-game winning streak, and the 35-34 win over then-No. 2 IMG Academy in 2024 that put the nation on notice. He is at Weber State now, and Casey Sutera has the program.

What came back is not nothing. Three of Corner Canyon's second-team all-state picks were juniors and all three returned: guard Jack West, linebacker Tate Patterson and safety Diesel Dart. Cornerback Josh Harris, an honorable mention, is back as well. The Chargers opened by winning 51-14 at Davis and sit 11th in the country on the SPIN National Top 50, so nobody should mistake rebuilding for vulnerable. But a rebuild is a rebuild, and Liberty gets them at home with a year to think about it. If the Lions are ever taking that game, this is the year.

About the Line SPIN Drew Between Utah and Arizona, and Why It Matters Less Than It Did

In July this desk wrote down a line: Utah's fronts get the benefit of the doubt over Arizona's until the field says otherwise. It moved our internal board and nobody else's, and it helped two Utah teams more than it punished three Arizona ones. Corner Canyon and Lone Peak carried residual credit out of last season. We are more confident about Corner Canyon's front than Lone Peak's, and Lone Peak hosts IMG Academy on Friday.

The honest update is that the line matters less now than it did. Arizona's rosters have grown up. Basha returns a national-caliber offensive line, Hamilton returns the most productive receiver in the West, and Chandler returns the best quarterback prospect in the country. On skill talent alone the desert has the better collection right now, and that is not a close call.

These are independent seasons, not one long argument. Utah's No. 1 beating Arizona's No. 4 is what should happen. The other result is the one that means something. If Liberty beats Corner Canyon on Sept. 4, the line goes in the bin and SPIN inverts how it reads this state, publicly and in the same week.

That is the offer. Arizona has our number written down. Come take it.