TexasHoops Weekly: Recapping the State Tournament (Mar. 11)

Seems like just a few weeks ago I was headed down to Austin for the CTX Tip-Off in the opening weekend of the season, but now the UIL state tournament has come and gone and we’re gearing up for the grassroots season again. For this week’s blog we’ll take a look at the various storylines from championship Saturday and recap the title games in each division.

This is what a title game in the biggest classification in the state is supposed to look like. Two strong teams going back and forth, riding waves of momentum and leaning on their star players to come up when it means the most. And that’s what this was.

Micah Peavy played the first half of his life to keep Duncanville in the game. If he doesn’t come out and have the impact he did in the first 16 minutes, we’re probably recapping a 10+ point win for Klein Forest today. But he came up with the goods and then some for the Panthers.

On the flip side of that, Calvin Solomon was just as effective as he was in a 24-point night their previous game and Kharee McDaniel kept showing off one of the purest pull up jumpers in the state to lead 31-26 at half. Solomon’s height and power deterred Duncanville’s guards from driving at the rim and his ability to take the ball to the hole from the perimeter gave KF a dimension that was hard to match.

But there’s still one star to mention in this contest. And just as he did in their semifinal game, Jahmius Ramsey came out of halftime with a chip on his shoulder and started to score like we’ve seen him do all year. His late layup gave Duncanville the lead at 70-69, and he then added a free throw to push it to a 2 point lead in the final minute. A KF turnover on the inbound with the length of the floor to go, and two subsequent free throws from Ja’Bryant Hill iced it down for Duncanville’s first title since 2007. Peavy finished with a line of 22 & 13 while Ramsey scored 14 of his 18 in the second half. In Ramsey’s first ever playoff run, and Peavy's first at Duncanville, the pair overcame all kinds of challenges, two OT games just to make it here, and an extremely well-coached Klein Forest bunch to reach the summit of Texas high school basketball. Ramsey will go out on top, but Peavy and key players such as Derek Luna, Damon Nicolas, and JB Hill will be back and gunning for a repeat next year.

When Timberview HC Duane Gregory was drawing up ways to start the 5A state championship game, I'd bet a 29-10 first quarter didn't cross his mind considering that Wagner had given the Wolves one of their only two losses of the season (the other being Duncanville). But that's what happened as Rodrigo Soares and CJ Smith picked up where they left off in the semifinal win over Manor, going on a 22-2 run at one point in the quarter. Timberview was too fast on the break for Wagner to cope with early, and got both Journee Phillips and Jalen Jackson in foul trouble with 3 each in the first half. Trazarien White was a man on the boards to start fastbreaks, and Marquiss Childs and Tristan Starks both went for 10 a piece as Timberview diced through Wagner in transition.

After going down 19 in the first half, it would've been easy for a team to roll over and realize that it wasn't going to be their day. But anyone familiar with the Wagner Thunderbirds knows that they're cut from sterner stuff than that. Phillips boosted his stock tremendously in a first half where he scored 20 of Wagner's 33, with Jackson and his younger broth Ja'sean providing the other 13. After the half, Phillips picked up his 4th almost immediately, and though he stayed in the game it clearly weighed on his mind when attacking the rim. However, Isaiah Kennedy started to feel it as Timberview went cold, and they ended up only trailing by 6 going to the 4th.

That would be as close as it would ever get, though, as CJ Smith took over from there and the older Jackson fouled out with 2 minutes remaining. Smith finished with 24 points and unanimous MVP honors as one of the holdovers from the 2017 title team. Phillips and Jackson finished with 22 and 16, respectively, as the T-Birds lost in their second title game in the past 3 years. Outside of Jackson's departure to North Texas, they will return most of their roster and should contend again next season.

Everyone you asked about 4A would have told you that the actual title game wouldn't be played in the last game of the 4A season. It was the semi-final between Oak Cliff Faith Family and Houston Yates (or depending on who you asked, one of the regional finals, FFA vs. Wilmer-Hutchins or Yates vs. Silsbee). Nobody, myself included, gave Liberty Hill much of a chance to compete with the talent and athleticism at Faith Family in the championship game. Hoopinsider picked their lines at Faith Family by 19 and FF by 30. I thought it would take something monumental, or a ball possession game plan for Liberty Hill to keep pace. But instead, something completely unexpected happened.

Liberty Hill didn't do anything extraordinary aside from lead the No.2 team in the state by double digits at halftime. They took care of the ball, defended doggedly, and made open shots when they presented themselves. HC Barry Boren kept his guys fresh with frequent rotations of personnel, while Faith Family looked hungover from their huge win over Yates the previous day.

The second half looked more like what I expected the whole game to. Trae Clayton got back to making shots and the FF guards Rakeim Gary and Mike Lenoir got into the paint to give LH trouble. When Faith Family wrenched back the lead and got up by 5, the thought was "oh well, Liberty Hill had a good run," but the Panthers weren't done yet. A 5 point burst tied things up with 19 seconds left. They had hit a game-winner the previous day to beat Decatur, and if they got the ball back I would have expected a similar outcome. But instead, the script was flipped on them as Gary found freshman Jordan Walsh with a dump-down in the final seconds and we got a buzzer beating dunk to end the game. Clayton was named MVP, but Liberty Hill's collective deserves praise for ignoring the noise, playing their game and going toe-to-toe with the best team in 4A.

A title game rematch from 2017 with a similar outcome, Brock trailed for almost the entire game before tying things up in the late 4th quarter. But on Madison's final possession the Trojans found big man Warren Dunn who was fouled going up, and then hit 1-of-2 free throws as Brock's halfcourt prayer went unanswered to give Madison a second 3A title in 3 years.

Madison struggled to score in the semifinal with Cole, though that wasn't the case here. They started out shooting the ball well and led by double digits in the 1st frame, with Dyeshun King and Jerome Rodgers both knocking down shots. But after that first quarter, the percentage started dropping as Brock started to catch up. Both teams shot under 40% from the floor, while Brock only managed 2-13 from behind the arc. Bradon Smith, Cooper Allen and Scott Thomas all got into double digits for the Eagles, but Dunn once again entered the game from the bench to make an impact with his post play, scoring 9 and earning TexasHoops.com's MVP honors.

Shelbyville never wavered as the top team in the state, the first wire to wire No.1 to win a championship in 2A since Muenster did it two years ago. They faced Jalin Conyers, who knocked them out in last year's state tournament with Stinnett West Texas, and a strong Gruver team trying to change their recent title game fortunes. But where last year after a quarter Conyers had 15 points and 5 dunks, this time around he found himself down 21-7 to a hungry Shelbyville team that made shot after shot.

Jay Buckley matched his 28 point game from the semifinal against Hearne to put this one out of reach early on, while Jordan Boykins went 5-7 from deep on his way to scoring 19. Conyers still managed to score 21 before fouling out in the fourth, but it was a rough shooting night for the Greyhounds as they only shot 35% from the floor compared to 49% for the Dragons.

Shelbyville looks like they could be back quite easily next year, as both Buckley and Boykins will return and they only lose all-tournament selection Cole Ferguson from their starting lineup.

Slayton Pruett came one rebound shy of tying the record for individual rebounds record for 1A, pulling down 21 boards to go with 10 points as Slidell returned to the top of 1A basketball for the first time in 76 years. Jayton kept pace for about 2.5 quarters in their first ever title game appearance, but had no answer for Pruett on the glass and their scoring dried up as we got closer to the 4th quarter.

Slidell got 12 points from Hunter Horner and 11 from Ben McCasland as they shot 50% from the field, whereas Jayton shot only 27.5%. Pruett, only a junior, will certainly have a chance to come back and see if he can grab 2 more boards and the single game record, held by Graford's Leonard Benning with 22.