Welcome back to the Deep Post!
Last week we published the sister edition of the state tournament Deep Post, wrapping up the girls basketball season. Now let’s hop into the boys edition.
Public School State Champions!
Hate, hate, hate. Double hate. LOATHE ENTRIELY!
Is that the Grinch or me after reading those comments proclaiming Wyoming East the Class AA public school state champions? Why not both.
For those unaware a very talented and youthful Wyoming East team ran into the buzzsaw that is Wheeling Central and lost in the state title game. Since Wheeling Central is a private school with a small enrollment located in a city with a higher population (27,000) than all of Wyoming County combined (20,000), or most other schools in Class AA or A, you’ll often hear residents throughout the state declare the highest finishing public school the public school state champion.
That has been the case again this year and it sucks.
I’m not ignorant to the advantages most private schools in the state work with. The argument is always that they recruit but everyone’s looking in the wrong place. Let’s be serious, public school programs recruit too. The real argument is they’re often located in the state’s biggest metro areas while playing in the smallest classifications. But that’s not what this is about.
Touting East as the public school champion feels diminishing of what the Warriors accomplished and it’s a mindset that holds you back. I’ll kindly remind East fans they’ve been very successful against private schools in their history.
Go back pre-consolidation. That 50-point state tournament record that Mullens legend Herbie Brooks established? It came against Parkersburg Catholic.
Speaking of Parkersburg Catholic, do you remember when the Crusaderettes were on a 44-game win streak in 2021? Who snapped that streak?
Wyoming East.
Wyoming East faced Charleston Catholic in the 2022 quarterfinals. And again in the 2024 quarterfinals. And again two weeks ago in the quarterfinals, falling behind by 10 points to the defending state champion Irish.
In case you forgot East is now 3-0 in those matchups. In fact the Lady Warriors are 4-1 against private schools in state tournament play since the four-class system was introduced.
All of that to say, if you’re good enough it doesn’t matter. Let’s tie East all-stater Broc Johnson into this.
After he was held scoreless in the state title game he had one of the best answers to a question I’ve heard at any level.
“There’s a lesson I take from everything,” Johnson said. “I thought I was a really good basketball player, that’s a really good basketball player (Sancomb), the guy that held me to zero points. I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Johnson’s still a really good basketball player and there are at least 40 or so other high school games that indicate as much but in a difficult moment he had the awareness and humility to acknowledge his shortcomings.
Be like Broc. Don’t let excuses lead to complacency. When you acknowledge there is a problem you can move to fix it. East’s kids probably believe they could beat the Lakers. An opposing coach once told me the banners on the walls at East and Mullens mean something to those kids, instilling a belief that they’re supposed to win no mater who they’re playing.
Calling them public school champions is insulting. Commend them on a terrific season but don’t put a handicap on them.
Braxton Morgan’s best effort
In most other years this specific East team comes away with a state championship. They just so happened to run into Eli Sancomb, who I believe is the best high school basketball player the state has seen in the last 10 years.
I liked him better at this level than 2021 and ’22 Evans Award winner and current Louisville standout Isaac McKneely as well as University grad Kaden Metheny.
That makes it all the more remarkable that Braxton Morgan was able to hold him to 21 points (10 points below his season average) on 8-of-23 shooting from the floor.
I didn’t know if East would have any chance of slowing him down but they did just that, limiting him as a scorer and so much of the credit goes to the senior Morgan. He’s probably the least heralded player on what was safely a super team but carried out the most difficult task on the floor.
And he did it well!
Six of those 21 points came on a pair of 30-foot 3-pointers and you’ll play the percentages on those looks as opposed to ones at the rim. Morgan limited Sancomb in a way very few in this state have over the last two years and that shouldn’t get lost in the shuffle.
Deja Vu
Wyoming East fell into the trap Wheeling Central has laid over the last two years and head coach Kent McBride did a great job pointing out and even recognizing beforehand.
The Maroon Knights play outstanding defense and because their margin for error is larger with Sancomb, they apply pressure to opposing teams. One bad or contested shot snowballs. It turns into a bucket on the other end and before you know it you’re in a 10-point hole, hoping to find four or five stops on the defensive end while playing catchup on the offensive end.
That’s an incredibly hard ask against a championship team.
Westside fell victim to this a year ago in the semis against Wheeling Central.
They gave up a run to end the second quarter, fell into a 12-point hole at halftime and spent the rest of the game chasing. They held Central scoreless for the first four minutes of the second half but couldn’t find the offense to claw back in and went 0-for-10 from the field in the fourth quarter.
Williamstown fell into the same trap in last year’s title game.
The Yellowjackets trailed just 34-30 after three quarters and shot 3-for-14 from the floor in the fourth, losing by 19 points in a game that was closer than the score indicated.
East finished the trifecta shooting 2-for-11 from the field in the third, watching a one-point deficit turn into 10-point deficit. And again, at that point you’re banking on stopping the best player in the state on four or five possessions and turning stops into scores on the other end just to claw back. Tall task.
McBride noted there was a heavy emphasis on avoiding that lull because it was Williamstown’s undoing. But you can see the pressure mount with each score.
“We had scouted Wheeling Central pretty heavily going back to last year’s game against Williamstown,” McBride said. “Williamstown was up with about a minute-and-a-half to go in the third quarter. Williamstown had seven straight really hard shots and Wheeling Central makes you take really hard shots and turns them into points.
“It went from one to 12 and we watched that as a unit. I think that’s what happened in the third quarter. We struggled offensively to put the ball in the hole and that led to them making that run. I don’t think it was our defense, I think it was our offense and that falls on me.”
Sometimes the shots just don’t fall. East’s first two looks of the half were open 3-pointers that rattled in and out but Central pushed the lead to 10 in that stretch. That’s when the pressure sets in.
Every other East shot was contested or off-balance. It just illustrates how small the margin for error is in a title game of that magnitude.
Greater Beckley hangs tough
Speaking of small margins for error, Greater Beckley had an experience similar to Wyoming East’s with two shots essentially sinking the Crusaders’ title hopes.
Tied at 44-all in the fourth quarter, Tug hit a pair of 3s to build a lead that held. It was brutal outcome for GBC which gave up nine 3-pointers to Tug in last year’s semis but just three on 3-of-12 shooting this time around.
It’s just that two of them came at the worst possible time. But that’s what championship teams do and sequences like that have been trademarks of this dynasty. It started two years ago with a steal and bucket against Tucker County in the final minute of the 2024 title game and extended into what became a 12-2 Panther run on Saturday.
All of that said, I thought Greater Beckley exceeded my expectations.
They returned just two starters from last year’s semifinal team, losing their two first team all-staters. The starters they returned were asked to take on drastically different roles and they asked a pair of freshmen and another sophomore to step into the starting lineup. And they gave the state’s newest dynasty a good run.
If they all stay there, the Crusaders stand as good of a chance as any team in Class A of returning to this stage next year. Maybe they’ll meet Summit and we can crown a Class A public school champion on Semifinal Friday.
The Jase Smith Fiasco
The all-tournament voting has become an annual subplot of Championship Saturday and this year was no exception. Bluefield all-stater Jase Smith was initially omitted from the all-tournament team despite averaging 22 points per game. When voters are given ballots prior to the title games, they’re also given sheets of composite player stats from the first two rounds.
Instead of having Jase Smith listed once with 44 points he was listed twice – once with 24 points and another time with 20, meaning his two games were split up.
There was also the fact Smith’s name was not in the system for digital ballots so they told us to vote for Jase Pannell and ballots would be tallied toward’s Smith name. Part of me wonders if there were some people who didn’t get that memo and left the name Jase off their ballots entirely.
While those were system errors, it shouldn’t have really mattered if voters were paying attention. So often they get their ballots and mark the top five scorers that are on the composite sheet. So much of our job in media is to pay attention to what you’re watching and if you can’t or haven’t seen enough, just don’t vote. If anybody has questions about his name being absent from the digital ballot, asking questions is a huge part of our profession. I might argue the biggest!
I didn’t submit a ballot for any class outside of double-A. I didn’t submit my Class A ballot before the third quarter cutoff and could’t dedicate enough time to Class AAA and AAAA with the runs Greater Beckley, Wyoming East and Bluefield made into the semis.
Smith was left off the all-tournament team, which understandably led many to question that decision. I spoke with the WVSSAC about it and they told me to have the WVSWA send a letter and they’d consider what we had to say.
WVSWA president Jim Workman gave me the green light, I submitted the letter and the SSAC told the WVSWA that this was our decision and they’d go with it but emphasized it was on the sports writers association.
The balloting process will never be perfect but there have been strides made to improve it. An example is the SSAC has given writers the opportunity to put two names down for MVP and designate that we’d like the MVP to come from the winning team. This, after two of the inaugural MVPs came from losing teams, one of which (Wheeling Central’s Kaitlyn Blake) didn’t even play in a title game.
I’m glad we were able to rectify that error and hope it leads to more thoughtful ballots moving forward.
Looking ahead
It was nice to see the area rebound from what was a subpar finish to the 2024-25 season. For the first time in over a decade there were no area girls or boys teams playing on Championship Saturday and this year we had four between the two weeks. And the future looks bright.
Wyoming East loses two seniors but brings back four kids that have earned all-state honors at some point. Greater Beckley’s core is comprised of kids who will be sophomores or juniors next season. Summit will become postseason eligible next year and returns everyone for what should be one of the best single-A teams in the state. Shady Spring loses Coby Dillon but returns five kids who started this season as underclassmen.
I can’t wait for December!
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