Photo by Heather Belcher
The Wyoming East boys basketball program, isn’t unfamiliar with state tournament appearances, but the current group is.
For the first time since 2022, the Warriors are heading back to the state tournament, ready to make some noise and advance past the first round since 2016.
After a season in which the Warriors saw three different coaches head the program, they’ve settled in under Kent McBride, a first team all-stater who led East to its first championship in program history as a player in 2002.
While he’s a veteran of the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center, having played there and coached as a coach at Concord, he’ll take a young bunch of pups to the capital. Four of his starters weren’t even in high school when the program fell to Bluefield in the opening round of the 2022 tournament.
“Zach Hunt was my only starter that went as a freshman so that is our only experience up there,” McBride said. “The only way that I know how to replicate and prepare them for that moment is just do what we’ve been doing. Unfortunately, we can’t replicate what the arena looks like. What we try to do is we try to instill such confidence in our players. We’ve won, I think nine in a row something like that so you try to have them feeling extremely confident because of the body work that they’ve done so when they walk in the arena, they don’t care who’s on the other side. So that’s where we’re trying to get our headspace.”
As a former player, McBride knows the exact feeling his players will experience when they step on that floor for the first time. The bright lights of the Coliseum have swallowed many great teams and made the extraordinary look subpar.
“I’m just very honest with them about my experiences and the growth that I went through up there and what it took and the teams that we had,” McBride said. “I was fortunate that being in that arena, and not only with being in the high school when we won the state championship in ’02 but even when you’re coaching the Mountain East, the only two years of my adult basketball life that did not end in the Charleston Civic Center or it wasn’t the goal was the two years I worked up in Pennsylvania cause you didn’t use the Civic Center.
“So I’ll just try to use all those experiences to let us know what to expect. It is gonna be different when they shut the outside lights off and the lights are just on the floor. It gives you a little different vibe but the only thing we can do is coaches is try to instill and extreme confidence in them so when that happens, they’re still just focused on the opponent across the way.”
The opponent across the way is a familiar one, not to be taken lightly.
Awaiting the fourth-seeded Warriors when they begin their journey on Tuesday at 9 p.m. is No. 5 Logan, a team the Warriors swept in the regular season. Both games were tightly contested with East taking the first matchup 59-51 in New Richmond in January and the second 65-63 on March 1 in Logan. The second game was won when East freshman Broc Johnson scored on a baseline layup with seven seconds to play.
Johnson averages nearly 15 ppg while center Konnor Fox is at that same mark. Talan Muscari, another freshman, nets 12 a game from the point guard spot while Braxton Morgan, a junior, is capable of leading the Warriors in rebounds and points on any given night. Hunt adds a 3-point threat to round out the starters.
Logan is led by its own freshman in Lucas Lambert, a 17 ppg scorer, while Zayden Sherod nets 13 ppg.
Playing a team three times in a season isn’t unique but does provide its own set of challenges in that the opposing team becomes more familiar with you. McBride is probably more familiar with that challenge than most. During his time in college basketball it was routine to play teams three times a year.
He’s hoping to cap the trifecta.
“I think there’s an advantage and not really because we beat them,” McBride said. “There’s familiarity there. I think we have a good handle on some adjustments they might make and for some adjustments that we can make to maybe get a basket here and there. When you play in a state tournament, again you typically draw teams that are not in your region or not in your area and you’re not very familiar with. You’re trying to scrounge up film and you got a four-day window and you’re trying to get some sort of familiarity with them. We’re not in that.
“We played these guys 14 days ago and our players are very familiar with them so you’re trying to find a way to maybe gain a little bit of advantage. I think (Logan coach) Mark Hatcher could probably say the same thing. We can’t reinvent ourselves and neither can Logan you know you are what you are. You do what you do and your strengths are your strengths. You just kinda have to find a way to maybe steal something here and there and that’s kind of where we are.”
