The nation’s No. 1 basketball team for players under 10 years of age is based right here in Richmond.

Competing in North Myrtle Beach, S.C., Team Loaded wiped out the competition as easily as a high tide leveling sand castles.

Team Loaded breezed to a 9-0 record, outscoring its foes 400-222 en route to winning the U-10 championship in the United States Basketball Association’s 2014 national tournament.

Separately, another area team, Squires Richmond, came within one point of winning the national AAU classic title for 11th-graders. The team lost 64-63 in the championship in Louisville, Ky., last week.

The rising fifth-graders on Team Loaded were guided by coaches Damon “Redd” Thompson, also head football coach at John Marshall High, and Corey Braxton, a teacher at Huguenot High and a former Virginia Union assistant basketball coach.

The Richmond-area jump shooters topped a field of 25 teams from around the country.

“We’re very athletic,” Braxton said. “We do a lot of full court pressing — sort of a mini-havoc — but we also have a strong half-court game.”

Team Loaded was hardly challenged. After going 6-0 in the preliminaries, the team made short work of foes in the knockout rounds, blasting the CB Spiders of North Carolina 52-16, in the quarterfinals, the North Carolina Swarm 57-46 in the semifinals and Team Heat, also of North Carolina, 46-24 in the finals.

The semifinals and finals were held July 19.

In the title match, Keishawn Pulley Jr. had 14 points and five rebounds and Nikkos Kovanes, the squad’s tallest player at 5-foot-7, had 12 points and eight boards. (A St. Christopher’s student, Nikkos also excels in football and lacrosse.)

Christian Braxton, son of one of the coaches, kick-started the team with six quick points to open the game. “Christian always gets us started,” said his proud father.

The powerful showing in South Carolina is nothing new for the team. Team Loaded, which went 31-6 this season, earlier won state and super-regional titles at Boo Williams Sportsplex in Hampton.

Team Loaded also won local tournaments at Virginia Commonwealth University and Randolph-Macon College.

One of the team’s rare losses came at a tournament in Washington, D.C., when Team Loaded fell to a Florida-based team featuring LeBron James Jr., who goes by “Bronny.”

Braxton says his national champs were a spin-off from the winter league youth basketball program the Richmond Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities sponsors.

“Redd and I got together and picked the best kids from all the peewee rec teams,” Braxton said. “It’s kind of like our Richmond all-stars.”

Team Loaded fields teams in other age groups. The coordinator is Ty White.

Ty White, head hoops coach for John Marshall High, the 2014 state 3A champion.

This is the first year that Team Loaded included a U-10 group.