Bill Bassett, the coach of Waterford High School boys basketball, is most recently known for leading the Lancers to state and ECC title runs this past season. He led Mikey Buscetto and company to the team’s first state title since 2012.

But coach Bassett’s success during his time at Waterford is nothing new.

A walk-on at Connecticut College during his junior year in 1998, Bassett and his Camels, led by head coach Glenn Miller, went undefeated in the regular season and made it to the final four in the Division III tournament. The following year, he was named team captain.

A lot of Bassett’s previous coaching experience has come at the volunteer level, although with Waterford’s success the past couple seasons, you would think otherwise.

He helped at Connecticut College under Coach Tom Satran, and at the beginning of his Waterford career in 2008, with the freshman and junior varsity team, until being named head coach of the varsity team in 2015.

During his first three seasons with the Lancers, he has led them to 60-14 record, with back-to-back ECC title game appearances and one ECC title, along with a state title.

Bassett gives a lot of credit to his players, most notably this season the all-star Mikey Buscetto.

“Great players graduate, and you have a dip. It’s natural. Waterford is a baseball school; it always will be. But Waterford basketball is in the conversation for a good program in the ECC and state for a while now, and I’m just proud I get to be a part of that.”

He called Buscetto one of the all-time Waterford greats.

“Landon Peabody came right before him; they overlapped for a couple years,” he said. “I think the culture here at Waterford is basketball is a great sport with high expectations.”

Bassett said a lot of the team’s success is about trust.

“We tend to run a little, but with Mikey he just slows the game down and sees the floor and controls the game himself. I think the last four games we maybe ran 10 offensive sets, and that’s because I let Mikey control the game,” Bassett said.

Still, he said, it’s all about the team, from the star player to the bottom of the bench.

“We’re all a family,” said Buscetto, “and he believes in every single one of us just as much as we believe in him. We all know that he will never give up on us and we will never give up on him and he’s someone we can go to whether basketball related or even just in life.”

Why basketball?

“It’s my passion,” Bassett said simply. “But at the same time in life people love things, but not everyone can teach things. To be a coach you have to have the passion and knowledge to teach things. For me, I can tell a lot about a kid just by the way they run the lay-up line.”

Coach has had great success his first three seasons, and his players seem to gravitate to him personally. One of the common denominators from players such as Buscetto, Liam Spellman and Eric Pinch is that he is a fun coach to play for but they know there is a goal.

“He makes playing basketball for him fun and stress free because even if we make a mistake, we know with coach that we will be given more opportunities to make up for it,” Spellman said.

“If we had a suggestion or an idea that might improve something, whether it was a play, or a defense, or a drill in practice, he would listen to what we had to say and take our input into consideration,” Pinch added. “I think that is what made our team extremely successful this year because he respected what we had to say.”

One thing Bassett preaches is family, and someday he hopes to be coaching his own son, who is now 8.

“You’re gonna be my coach, right?” his son once asked.

“I need seven years for that to happen,” Bassett said. “So I don’t know exactly, but I’m hoping to still be here with my family, and as far as coaching, I hope to continue to lead a competitive program here at Waterford.”

Bassett credited his wife for taking care of all the “extra stuff” that happens when he is coaching practices and away games.

“Being a coach is hard,” he said. “You have to have the right staff around you. Any coach you talk to that is a father and a husband knows that your wife is a huge part.”

One thing is for sure: As long as coach Bassett remains at Waterford, the ECC and state will have tough competition at the varsity level.