Bobby Moorehead carries a sort of quiet intensity. He’s not boisterous, he doesn’t stomp his feet on the sideline or hoot and holler.

But spend any time around the former University of Montana hooper — now second-year Bellarmine Prep boys basketball coach — and a few things become clear: there’s a seriousness there, an edge. There are few things he demands from his teams.

“You’ve gotta be tough,” he said. “You’ve gotta have grit. To me, there’s nothing more embarrassing than a loose ball being on the floor and us not being there first. To me, that’s what it’s all about.

“There’s a lot of people who just don’t want to compete. In life, in basketball, in everything, they just don’t want to compete. So for us, that’s an easy way to put ourselves at an advantage.”

Moorehead, who is a 2015 graduate of Tacoma’s Stadium High School, is quickly establishing himself as one of the elite coaches in Washington’s 3A classification.

He took Bellarmine to the 3A state tournament quarterfinals in his first season and this winter, has Bellarmine Prep in the state tournament semifinals after a 68-40 win over Edmonds-Woodway in the quarterfinals at the Tacoma Dome on Thursday.

This year’s team mirrors his coaching identity: tough, defensive-minded, scrappy.

“We love it,” senior forward Ben Heisel told The News Tribune after Thursday’s win. “(Moorehead) pushes us in practice, defense. In the game, we’ve gotta play defense. Work hard, play defense.”

Moorehead, easy to spot on the sideline at 6-foot-7, was the 4A Narrows League MVP in his senior season at Stadium, when he averaged 26.5 points and 11 rebounds. At Montana, he appeared in a school-record 134 games, including 79 starts. He started all 69 games over his final two seasons and scored 764 points during his college career.

After college, he worked as an assistant under now-retired Curtis coach Tim Kelly, part of a coaching staff that coached the Vikings to back-to-back 4A state titles with McDonald’s All-American and UW signee Zoom Diallo (now playing for UW) leading the charge.

Moorehead said his coaching philosophy is a culmination of both his playing and coaching career.

“I think you take stuff from every stop you’re at,” he said. “I had coaches in high school, so I take things from those days. I take a lot from my Montana days, obviously. We had a lot of success when I was at Montana, so there’s things that I thought were gonna translate.

“And then obviously at the high school level, learning what it means to be successful with Tim (Kelly). … learning a lot from a guy who is in my opinion, maybe the best coach in Washington history.”

The results have been immediate at Bellarmine Prep. The state semifinals appearance this season is the furthest Bellarmine has advanced in the bracket since 2012. Prior to his arrival, the program’s last state tournament appearance came in 2018.

To Bellarmine coach athletic director Kevin Meines, Moorehead has been the perfect fit for the private school that values community.

“He’s good at relationship building, connecting with the players, Meines said. “We’re a relational school.”