Area teams should rise to top again
As local high school basketball teams begin postseason play in earnest with sub-regional matchups tonight and Friday, it'll be interesting to see if Mobile can equal last year's success on the hardwood.
LeFlore and Williamson swept the 6A and 5A boys' basketball titles last year, the first time two Mobile teams have claimed both boys' big-school crowns. It could happen again, as the Rattlers and Lions are both ranked No. 1 in their respective classifications.
Southwest Alabama teams also swept the 1A titles, as McIntosh won its second straight girls' title and J.F. Shields upset St. Jude for the boys' crown.
Here's a look at the Mobile area's best bets for state basketball championships this season.
-- LeFlore's boys. With Marquette signee Nick Williams returning from last year's state championship squad, the 27-2 Rattlers probably would have been the odds-on favorite to repeat even before one of the top junior prospects in the country, 6-foot-10 center DeMarcus Cousins, transferred in. Now you'd be hard-pressed to find anybody to bet against LeFlore, ranked No. 12 in the country by USA Today. A dominant 92-65 win over Baldwin County in the 6A Area 4 final Monday provided an exclamation point on the end of the sentence: LeFlore is the team to beat in Class 6A.
-- Williamson's boys. This is a different-looking bunch of Lions than the group that ran through Class 5A last year, as both of 2007's big men, 6-4 Nick Fairley and 6-8 Josiah Anabraba, are gone. This year's team is more guard-oriented and is led by 6-3 point guard Mykel Cleveland, who's averaging more than 20 points a game. Big or small, it doesn't seem to matter to the 27-1 Lions.
-- Davidson's girls. The third-ranked Warriors have lost to only one in-state team this season -- 29-1 Hoover -- and are led by one of the top players in the state, point guard Jasmine Bendolph, a Louisiana Tech signee. Their biggest challenge at the Central Regional would likely come from Selma, whose 29-0 record includes a loss to LeFlore that was forfeited by the Rattlers for the use of an ineligible player.
-- Vigor's girls. The fourth-ranked Wolves are young -- two of their top players are freshmen -- and they have a first-year coach in Beverly Coleman. But there doesn't appear to be a clear front-runner in 5A this year and Vigor (21-4) may have just as good a shot of bringing home the hardware as anyone else. Four-time defending state champ Ramsay lost its top two players off last year's squad and is 14-13 entering sub-regional play.
-- McIntosh's girls. Leading scorer Kim Davis graduated and 6-2 post player Alexis Broussard transferred to McGill-Toolen, but it hasn't fazed the Demons. Led by point guard Brittany Simmons, who averages a double-double, McIntosh is 25-0 and is the clear favorite to win a third straight 1A crown.
-- Faith Academy's girls. No list of local favorites would be complete without the Rams in the AISA, where Woodie Head's teams are seemingly always in the state championship game. The competition will get tougher next year when Faith moves into the AHSAA, but the top-seeded Rams have a good chance for one last title on their way out.
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