After 11 weeks the end is in sight. Girls sectionals will finish this coming week and by Friday only a handful of teams will still be playing basketball. For others it will be the start of baseball, softball and track season. The boys will trek that same path a week later.
For four area teams the road to the end is one they blazed a year ago en route to playing on the final day of the year. On the boys side Bluefield, Shady Spring and James Monroe played for titles last year while Wyoming East did so on the girls side. James Monroe was the only one of the four to win a title while Shady Spring and Wyoming East lost in title defenses.
All four teams return the cores of those squads from a year ago, losing a combined five starters. Further, all four are ranked in the top two of the latest AP Poll in their respective classes with James Monroe and Shady Spring unanimously occupying the top spots in their class.
With the postseason set to begin, lets check in with last year’s Saturday participants and examine where they stand ahead of the postseason.
Wyoming East (Girls)
On paper Wyoming East checks all the boxes. The roster features three players who have been first-team all-staters at some point in their careers with sophomore point guard Cadee Blackburn seemingly on track to join that group. The problem is East’s achilles heel has been painfully magnified this season. The Lady Warriors don’t shoot the ball particularly well (only one player has a 3-point field goal percentage above 24 percent) and their attempts at running a halfcourt offense have often stalled or proved ineffective as teams have opted to zone them with success.
Complicating their path to Charleston are the teams they’ll have to go through to get there. Summers County, a team East will likely host in the sectional championship, currently holds the No. 1 ranking and has significantly closed the gap. Summers lost to East by 23 at home in late December, improved and nearly won at East last month, holding a two-point lead in the fourth quarter. On the other side Chapmanville has quietly put together a quality season while Mingo Central has beaten East two times. Once a strength, the intimidation factor has worn off and teams seemingly don’t fear the Lady Warriors the way they once did.
They’ve moved away from pressure looks which has allowed teams to get comfortable early and play at a more manageable pace. That shift has also likely negatively impacted their scoring abilities as they’re not generating transition points. Their steals per game are down to 12.7 this year, a drop off from the 15.4 clip they posted last season and the 20.9 average from their 2021 championship season. In fact this year’s total is the program’s lowest since the 2016-17 season when they averaged 10.9 while navigating injuries. Steals and turnovers heavily translate into success for the program. During five consecutive state tournament games between 2021 and ’22, the Lady Warriors forced 20 turnovers in each contest and won by double digits. In the two games sandwiching those five – title game losses to Fairmont Senior in 2019 and Parkersburg Catholic in 2022 – they forced eight and 10 turnovers.
This isn’t a knock on East’s defense which has held team ranked in the AP Poll to an average of 40 points per game. It’s more so to point out they’re not getting the same easy looks while losing ground in the mental matchup. And if there were a way to measure the intangible intimidation factor, the relentless pressure defense and the mental toll it exacts would be worth a few points alone.
All of that said, East still boasts the most talented roster in Class AA but the path to that final Saturday and another title depends upon on harnessing that talent and carving out an identity and philosophy that works.
James Monroe (Boys)
James Monroe was arguably the team amongst these four that lost the most to graduation when first-team all-stater Shad Sauvage and 6-foot-5 center Cameron Thomas moved on. Still the Mavericks haven’t missed a beat. Their two losses are to Shady Spring and Class AAAA Beckley and they’ve handed Bluefield a pair of losses. Led by one of the the best players in the state in Eli Allen, James Monroe appears to be in great position to defend its crown. Allen’s game is continuously evolving. He’s become a strong 3-point shooter hitting at a 42 percent clip and at 6-foot-3 he’s the complete package in Class A as a top-tier rebounder and passer.
Teams can try to zone Allen to stop him from getting down hill or even take charges to get him in foul trouble but as the season’s gone on he’s adjusted to that strategy by pulling up in the lane more. But for as good as Allen is he isn’t a one-man show. Josh Burks and Collin Fox are great defenders that have shined on offense when their numbers have been called. Owen Jackson has also emerged as another knockdown shooter to help when defenses collapse on Allen. Seemingly the only thing that could stop the Mavericks from repeating is depth. They usually don’t play more than six in meaningful games so if foul trouble were to plague them along the way it could be their achilles heel but as noted, Allen and Co. seem to be cognizant of that yet still have the pieces to beat any team in Class A.
Bluefield (Boys)
The Beavers are an intriguing batch. They can realistically get 18 points a night from four of their five starters and have played the most challenging schedule in their class this season. They’ve played James Monroe, Shady Spring and Beckley twice and close with Class AAAA schools Princeton and Greenbrier East, capping home and home swaps with both programs. That’s led to a 13-5 season thus far which might not seem as impressive but if you adjust for the level of competition you might think differently.
They’re still able to press and cause issues with the best of them but their ability to do so has been somewhat limited this year. Make no mistake, they still sprinkle in pressures and traps but they have to pick and choose their spots because they’re not very deep.
When the Beavers need to go to their bench they can’t do so for long against the schedule they’ve faced. Any early foul trouble hampers their gameplan. The good news is the Beavers stand a good chance at locking up the No. 2 seed should they win their section and return to Charleston. At worst they should be the No. 3 seed and they’ve already beaten No. 3 Chapmanville on neutral court.
Shady Spring (Boys)
It’s hard to find something new to say about Shady Spring and that’s been the case for two years now. This current senior class erupted on the scene as sophomores, claiming the first state championship in program history. They nearly repeated last year as juniors, losing at the buzzer. Now they’re ready to close their careers with one more run to Saturday.
At this juncture, it would be hard to argue there’s a better team in the state than the Tigers. It ultimately doesn’t matter because they won’t play each other again but they held a double-digit lead at Class AAAA No. 1 Morgantown in the season opener before fading down the stretch. They’ve also been tested every night. They traveled to Florida over Christmas break and took their lumps against nationally ranked teams. Since then they’ve been on a tear beating Class A No. 1 James Monroe, Class AA No. 2 Bluefield twice, Class AAAA No. 2 Parkersburg South and lastly they beat No. 2 Fairmont Senior, the team that beat Shady at the buzzer last year, by 20.
Their offense has progressively gotten better with the addition of assistant coach Shawn Radford whom head coach Ronnie Olson has given the reins of the offense too. That detail is an important one for Olson. He felt some of the situational nuances of the game got away from him in last year’s championship game. He took the offseason and evaluated ways to make his team better and the addition of Radford was one of those ways. It allowed him to delegate basketball responsibilities even further to maximize the potential of the most talented group the area has seen in a decade. He didn’t just assume that because he had his entire team returning that he’d be on top. Given that fact, it would be easy to be complacent and chalk the championship loss last year to bad luck. He was instead proactive in finding ways to push his team even further in hopes of preventing another title loss.
It’s seemingly led to getting the best out of his players. Ammar Maxwell has taken a leap, becoming the Tigers’ No. 2 on offense. It’s put all-state point guard Cole Chapman in a position where he can play distributor and run the show with less scoring responsibility. Cameron Manns has become more than a spot-up shooter. He’s a double-double threat that’s averaged close to 20 points per game since the turn of the calendar. But while the offensive progression has been nice, the defense, the foundation of the program, is in top form.
The Tigers’ relentless pressure and man defenses are hell to compete against. There’s nowhere to hide and no breaks to be found. They physically test teams for 32 minutes, wearing on them mentally in the process. Most teams break as it’s a difficult style of basketball to matchup with.
That said it can also serve as a weakness. They push the issue to the point of fouling and depending on the officiating crew it could hamper their ability to play as aggressively as they’d like. They have depth to help mitigate foul trouble but they’re at their best when they can bully you and make you uncomfortable early. Considering they’ve already handled the No. 2 team in their classification, the Tigers seem as sure of a bet as any team to play on the final Saturday of the season.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
