| A.L. Brown girls basketball coach Doug Wilson heard the Tuesday night
scores and said, “Can you believe that?”
Wilson was referring to his sparkling
overall record (now 15-6) but knows his team will have to win the North Piedmont
Conference tournament to get into the state playoffs because of its 5-6 league mark.
That’s just the way it is in the NPC,
where five teams have at least 15 wins.
Only three teams earn berths to the
playoffs. Going into tonight, the last night of the regular season, East Rowan and North
Iredell are tied for first at 8-3, while West is 7-4. Statesville, at 8-4, is the leader
in the clubhouse.
“There’s nobody head and
shoulders above anybody else,” said North Iredell coach Kent Blackwelder. “The
conference tournament should be something else.”
Blackwelder was also looking toward next
season, when nothing should change.
“It’s a young league,” he
said. “We only have two seniors.”
West Rowan will bring bring back most of
its talent, while East has three sophomore all-county candidates.
So if Wilson is the only downcast coach,
there’s a reason. He starts four seniors.
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FAITHFUL: If Mike Gurley was displeased
with his reserves Tuesday night, he didn’t let on.
West was leading North Iredell by a
whopping 86-41 when he emptied his bench. The Raiders promptly ended the game on a 25-3
run.
“I was given the authority to coach
the entire basketball team,” he said. “I’m not going to sit and not coach
some of these guys who are working hard to be the best players they can be. If I
don’t let them know, the positives and the negatives, I’m doing them an
injustice.
“I want to make sure we’re
coaching the whole time and that’s important to these young players.”
Gurley gave a loyal grin and nodded toward
players like Donte Minter and Junior Hairston.
“We really like those guys,” he
said, referring to the reserves. “They’re Falcons, just like Donte.”
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HURRY UP: When you’re 22-0 and winning
by an average of 33 points per contest, you almost want the regular season to end so the
playoffs can start.
“I wish we could jump everything and
go straight to the playoffs,” Gurley said.
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BACK-TO-BACK:West was forced to play
Tuesday and Wednesday nights, but Gurley wasn’t worried about tired legs from high
school players.
“At this time of year, they’d
much rather play than show up here at 7 p.m. and listen to Gurley demand they get their
legs in a stance or take 100 jump shots.”
“I didn’t even mention to my team
they were playing two nights straight,” said West girls coach Toni Wheeler after her
team beat A.L. Brown on Wednesday. “I didn’t want to put any tired thoughts in
their heads.”
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500 CLUB:Donte Minter went over 500 points
for the season in Wednesday night’s win over A.L. Brown.
He’s the 28th Rowan County boy in the
modern era to post a 500-point season.
He has 1,911 points for his career after
getting 25 on Wednesday.
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DEAD EYE:When A.L. Brown’s Shannon
Blackmon launched a 3-pointer that bounded high, then came to rest on top of the basket
supports, Gurley sprang into action.
With the whole house watching, he carefully
surveyed the placement of the ball, then knocked it loose with one precise toss. The ball
trickled down the backboard, hit the rim and then spun in and out as the crowd groaned and
Gurley grinned.
“Belmont Abbey, baby!” he shouted
at A.L. Brown coach Shelwyn Klutz as he strode back to the bench, accompanied by cheers.
Klutz waved back.
Klutz and Gurley have a good relationship
and amazingly similar backgrounds. They played against each other in college when Gurley
was at Belmont Abbey and Klutz was at Mars Hill, and both took on their current jobs the
same season.
So far, Gurley’s teams are perfect
against Klutz, but who knows what’ll happen down the road.
“I like Shelwyn,” said Gurley.
“It’s a running joke between me, him and John Davis (South Rowan’s coach
who played at St. Andrews). We’re the small college guys.”
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NPC MADNESS: The NPC has followed a strange
path all season and will continue to navigate weird waters in its conference tournaments.
Now listen closely.
It’s a seven-team league, so No. 1
teams get a first-round bye. That’s cool. That’s normal.
Apparently, the No. 2 seeded boys and girls
teams will host all three — yes, all three — first-round games on Tuesday
afternoon and night.
That means Mooresville hosts the three boys
games. No one has any clue at this point, however, who the girls No. 2 seed is going to be
since four teams are still battling for first.
Semifinals and finals will be played on
Wednesday at Statesville High, because it boasts the biggest gym.
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MAGICAL MAGGIE:When East’s Maggie Rich
scored 35 points against Statesville on Tuesday night, it was the most points scored in a
game by an East girl since 1960.
Amazingly enough, the two highest-scoring
games by an East girl both happened that season. Linda McNair scored 37 against Monroe and
Peggy Cozart scored 36 against Children’s Home.
One more thing about Rich’s amazing
night. She didn’t score in the first seven minutes of the game and sat out the last
minute or so.
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IT AIN’T OVER: South Rowan’s boys
only chance of making the state playoffs now lies with winning the 4A Central Piedmont
Conference Tournament. But if that ship comes in, you can probably win a car by betting a
candy bar.
South would have to survive its first-round
game, then beat (most likely) R.J. Reynolds and West Forsyth on West’s home floor to
win the title. Last time, the Raiders visited Clemmons they were down 27-0 before they
blinked.
Still, the Raiders don’t sound like
people who are giving up, and they did win yet another grinder at North Davidson on
Tuesday.
“We’re not the most athletic team
in the world, but this is the hardest working team I’ve ever been on,” said
senior forward Tre Hornbeak, who’s scored 41 in his last two games. “I know
we’re not ready to say it’s over.”
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FILLING IT UP:Davie (13) and South (9)
combined for 22 3-pointers their recent boys game.
In the second quarter, South guard Andrew
Morgan connected for three 3-pointers in a span of 96 seconds.
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