BY MIKE LONDON
SALISBURY POST

HICKORY — None of these fellas are Cinderellas.

Not one of the 3A boys teams at this year’s Western Regional ball has brought along glass slippers. Instead, they’ve brought along glass-eating rebounders.

All the coaches at East Burke High tomorrow night will be the kind that scream at players and plead with refs and draw up junk defenses on napkins. Not the kind that are pulled by horses and turn into pumpkins at midnight.

This is an elite group. If this were major league baseball, this would be a gathering of the Yankees, Diamondbacks, Braves and Mariners.

The four best basketball teams, the four teams everyone expected to get to this point, the four teams that were supposed to convene here in their quest for rings, are present and accounted for.

Call the roll. There’s towering West Rowan. There’s ultra-athletic Gastonia Ashbrook, which was playing 4A ball just the other day. There’s sweet-shooting, fundamentally perfect Trinity. And there’s T. C. Roberson, hard-nosed perennial king of the Asheville area.

Roberson hasn’t lost yet to a 3A team. Ashbrook’s lost once to teams from this state. Trinity’s lost once since Christmas. West, of course, hasn’t lost, period.

All are conference champs that took care of business during the regular season, then backed it up in the sectionals. Their combined record of 103-7 makes this the best quartet since the Beatles.

“We’re 26-3,” griped affable Roberson coach Rich Sizemore as he sipped Coke in Hickory’s Metro Center on Monday. “And we’ve got the worst record in this place.”

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West’s Mike Gurley and Sizemore, both balder than basketballs, chuckle as they swap hair jokes.

But the respect is almost tangible as they wave at one another. That’s because Gurley expects Sizemore to be here, and vise versa.

Four years ago, Sizemore’s squad ended Gurley’s first Falcon season in these regionals.

Three years ago, a West freshman named Donte Minter scored 16 points as Gurley’s guys sent Sizemore’s studs packing in the regional final.

“It’s something to get back to the regionals and that same kid that sent you home three years ago is still around,” sighed Sizemore. “Of course, I think Scooter (Sherrill) got about 30 on us in the second half.”

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All the teams in the field are obviously good enough to knock off West on that “any given night” coaches love to expound about. Yet the Falcons are clear-cut favorites, provided all goes according to Hoyle.

In fact, the three opposing coaches practically joust with one another to see who can heap the most outlandish praise on West.

Trinity’s Tim Kelly wears a bright red Bobby Knightish sweater that makes him look too young to be in this pressure cooker. At least, until you remember that his point guard is also his son.

“What do I hear about West?” smiles Kelly, who was carved up 66-44 by the Falcons in last season’s sectional semifinals. “I hear they’re better than they were last year. And Donte Minter? What can you say? We’ve all seen him. The superlatives are endless.”

Asked about his team’s weaknesses, if any, Kelly doesn’t hesitate. “We’d sure like to be a little bigger,” he said. “If we get to play West, they can hurt us inside. We don’t have West’s size.”

But who outside of the San Antonio Spurs does?

“West could win the 4A classification this year,” commented Sizemore. “The rest of us here in 3A are really even. Then you’ve got West. They’re a notch above.”

But Sizemore’s not exactly helpless. His star is high-rising Greg Benton, whose brother Shawn Alexander (now the star for Winston-Salem State) wrecked the Falcons’ ship in 1998.

Sizemore moaned that he lost a 6-foot-8 kid a few weeks back to a broken arm and since then his team hasn’t rebounded to his liking.

“We can step out and shoot it pretty good,” he said. “But we just aren’t as athletic as West is.”

But again, who is?

Well, Ashbrook, West’s Friday night opponent, might be.

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Ashbrook’s coach is wide-grinning, blue-shirted, dark-haired veteran Marty Hatchell, who’s shared an occasional scouting report and an occasional beverage — sweet tea, most likely — with Gurley over the years.

In the small world category, when Gurley was at Lexington High and Hatchell was at Bessemer City High, West Rowan played their teams back-to-back in the 1995 regionals. The Falcons handled Bessemer City 60-45 in the semis, but lost to Gurley’s Yellow Jackets 66-64 in the Western finals.

Hatchell’s coached for 22 years, so he knows his team is darn good. But people assure him West is even better.

“I know they put their shoes on the same way as us, but from what I hear, West could beat some small colleges,” Hatchell said. “We haven’t faced anybody like them physically. They’ll be the most talented team we’ve seen. It’s David and Goliath, no doubt about that.”

Smoke-screen?

Sure, at least some of this poor-mouthing, West-is-just-so-awesome banter obviously is.

You’d better believe that Hatchell, Sizemore and Kelly are supremely confident that if their guys go out on the floor, execute, get Minter in foul trouble and make their free throws they can take West down.

But it’s also true the nationally ranked Falcons are the team to beat. If all four teams perform at the very top of their game, it’s the Falcons who will carry the West banner to Chapel Hill next weekend.

“Three of us are just happy to be here,” said Sizemore. “But with West, it’s like they’re not just happy to be here, it’s like they’re supposed to be here.

“Look at how comfortable Mike (Gurley) looks and his team will be the same way. It’s like Hickory is their place.”

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West-Ashbrook game preview will appear on Friday. Contact Mike London at 704-797-4259 or mlondon@salisburypost.com .