New Richmond – Much of the draw for Wyoming East viewers has been the allure of its young core that will have another season together whenever this one concludes.
The Warriors will graduate just one starter but as of semifinal Friday none of them have advanced further than that round. But they do have a player who has already reached the peak they all desperately want to hit.
Braedy Johnston isn’t immune to the expectations of a championship-level program. The Wyoming East senior experienced them first hand during his time at Shady Spring where he was on the roster as a freshman when the Tiger lost the 2023 title game and played four minutes in the 2024 title game, one that they won 58-55 in overtime.
Seeking another shot at reaching that peak, Johnston transferred to East where he’s accepted his role as an important sixth man.
“I just want to do whatever (Wyoming East head coach) Kent (McBride) needs me to do,” Johnston said. “My dad played with him. I just thought it’d be really cool to come down here for my senior year. I just didn’t want to go out with any regrets. I know (Kent) knows what he’s doing so whatever he decides I trusts him.”
Johnston’s acceptance of his sixth man role is an outward indicator of his growth and maturity, though the larger ones have come behind the scenes.
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To understand how the sharpshooting senior ended up where he is, you’ll need to understand where he was. A starter for the defending Class AAA champs a year ago, Johnston left the team in February after a disagreement with head coach Ronnie Olson.
It brought an end to his junior season and he transferred to East where his father Jordan won a title in 2002, playing alongside McBride.
During that time Johnston was left on the outside looking in. He couldn’t step in to help his new team against an older, much more experienced Williamstown team and he had already left his old team which struggled offensively in a semifinal loss to Nitro.
He missed out on one of the greatest high school experiences – playing in the state tournament.
“It was really miserable,” Johnston admitted. “It sucked going down there and watching Wyoming East make it to the final four and Shady play in the semifinal. I felt when they lost to Nitro, it just kept playing in my head if I was out there I might be the missing piece because they needed a wing defender and somebody that can shoot because they struggled to score a little bit. You kind of always regret things after they happen but it was really hard.”
That sympathy was one of Johnston’s first steps of personal growth.
Next was competing for a starting spot in New Richmond.
East returned four starters from last year’s semifinal team and had two legacy transfers competing for the final spot – Johnston and Keegan Davidson. The battle wasn’t contentious with Davidson offering to come off the bench but McBride made the decision to use Johnston as the player who would replace center Konnor Fox off the bench.
“It’s difficult,” McBride said. “We knew when it started evolving that way, we knew it was going to be difficult on him and we were here to support him through it. We knew there was going to be an acceptance period to get comfortable. If you look at his performance earlier in the year it’s indicative of the fact he wasn’t comfortable there yet. We were trying to be understanding in that situation because it is a difficult situation. I think if you look at the last month-and-a-half he’s grown comfortable in it and his performance reflects he’s comfortable in doing that.
“The thing he doesn’t realize that he’s doing for me – there will never be another kid that can come in here and say, ‘Coach, why am I not starting?’ because I can look right at Braedy Johnston and say, ‘You want me to tell his story?’ We were able to talk to him and I was able to reflect on the fact that (MEC first team all-conference selection) Rob Reed came off the bench for me for a whole year. That’s what good teams have. Good teams have six-seven guys that are starters. We’re really appreciative of it and we knew it’d take some time. I think his comfort level has shown in his play.”
After accepting that role, one more major growth milestone stood before Johnston – humility.
Johnston didn’t leave Shady on good terms. Words were had and It was something that ate at him.
When the teams met in December at the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center, East lost to Shady in one of the area’s best matchups of the year. An emotionally charged game between the two best teams in the area, Shady won on a game-winning shot by freshman Jace Bailey.
Johnston wasn’t bitter. Quite the opposite.
Following a difficult loss, an emotional Johnston waited until the media cleared out of the Shady locker room and approached Olson.
“Ever since all that happened at Shady, I’ve wanted to talk to Ronnie in person,” Johnston said. “I didn’t want to do it over text. I didn’t feel like it was the right thing to do. After that game – I knew going into it, win or lose, I wanted to speak to him. Whether I was right or wrong, I knew that I needed to apologize. I knew that some of the things I said and how I acted, I should never treat or talk to an adult that way, especially one of my coaches that taught me a lot and cared for me.
“I give him credit because I feel like I’m the defensive player I am because of him and the staff at Shady taught me everything. So we were walking through the handshake line and he grabbed me and said he was rooting for me whether I believed it or not. He wanted me to do good. After that I just knew I had to make things right. I’ve definitely grown and matured over the last few months which is really a good thing. I wasn’t proud of or happy with how everything ended at Shady, so I knew that would be a big weight off my chest.”
Free of that emotional burden, Johnston’s been able to focus on basketball, pulling from the positives he experienced at Shady.
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Aside from McBride, Johnston is the only one in the East locker room who’s experienced championship Saturday as a player.
It’s given McBride an invaluable weapon and example in more ways than one.
“When we, as 42-year-olds say, ‘Back in my day..’ guys generally look up at the ceiling because they’re not listening,” McBride said. “Braedy’s not a super vocal, demanding personality. His style is very happy, very easy-going and me and him have had a couple conversations in here behind closed doors to kind of talk about that and what it looks like. I’ll be honest, early in the year he said, ‘Coach, this is not a state championship team right now.’ But he said ‘right now.’
“We talked about it and down the road but if I don’t use that resource then what kind of leader am I? I can’t sit here and tell everybody just because I’ve done it I have all the answers. I’m going to lean on guys who are in the locker room and have that experience on where we’re kind of lacking, what we need to do and where we need to get. We had that conversation sitting on the couch and since we’ve had it he’s played better and we’ve played better.”
Johnston now sits two wins away from helping the Warriors reach the same peak he did two years ago. He sees many parallels and in many ways they’re a reflection of what he’s seen so much within himself – growth.
“We’re really close off the floor,” Johnston said. “There’s a lot of noise but we’ve grown to handle it well. We’ve proven time and again we can win in any way. That’s what’s going to win in March. Everybody knows that good shooting teams – if you rely on just shooting the ball most of the time you don’t win. Our defense has really grown throughout the year and we’ll keep that up.”
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