REFORM, Ala. — The Pickens County High School boys basketball team lost its best player to graduation.
The Tornadoes also had to replace a coach who led them to back-to-back state titles.
But change didn’t scare Patrick Plott, De’Marko Hall, and the rest of the Pickens County High program. Expectations didn’t faze the Tornadoes, either, so when thoughts turned to winning a third consecutive state championship in 2011-12, they accepted the challenge and didn’t let anything stop them.
“Coach Plott came in here and said he was going to keep it the same and we were going to keep winning,” senior Nicholas Stewart said. “We struggled at the beginning of the season because we lost our best player (Deion Curry) and we had a lot of fill-ins bench wise. We knew we could win it, but a lot of people doubted us.”
Pickens County capped its second straight Alabama High School Athletic Association Class 1A state title, and third crown overall, with a 70-59 victory against Cedar Bluff on March 1 at the Birmingham-Jefferson Arena Convention Complex.
The victory wrapped up a 29-5 season and a playoff run that saw the Tornadoes win their seven postseason games by an average of 31 points. The closest game was a 53-48 victory against Georgiana in the Class 1A semifinals on Feb. 28. Senior LaJuan Doss played only four minutes in that game after tearing the meniscus in his knee. The Tornadoes twice trailed by seven points in the second quarter before orchestrating their biggest comeback of the season. Pickens County rallied despite going 8 of 19 from the free-throw line and 1 of 11 from 3-point range. The Tornadoes overcame those subpar outings with another defensive gem. They had 13 steals, had an 18-7 edge in points off turnovers, and limited Georgiana to 24.1 percent shooting from the field (7 of 29) in the second half after they trailed 30-27 at halftime.
Doss said he was told the injury would end his high school career. He said he went to the doctor Wednesday to receive a shot, which loosened his knee up. He said it hurt a little bit for the final, but there was no way he was going to miss that game.
Just to make sure, though, he gave his teammates a little incentive to make sure he would have another game to play.
“I told the boys if you get through tonight I promise you I will be back Thursday,” Doss said.
Hall’s three-point with 19 seconds remaining snapped a 48-all tie. Following a Georgiana turnover, Devonte Simon converted a layup and Hall made a steal to seal the deal.
Doss returned for the title game and had four points and three rebounds. Hall, the tournament MVP, had 17 points, while Warren Betts Jr. led the way with 19 points, four assists, and six steals. Bobby Bradford added 14 points, nine rebounds, and four steals, while Stewart had 12 points and 11 rebounds and Simon had two points, three rebounds, and four steals.
True to its defensive nature, Pickens County had 15 steals and forced 25 turnovers. It led by as many as 12 points in the third quarter before Cedar Bluff cut the led to five with a little more than five minutes to play. Betts hit two free throws, Hall had a layup, and Betts added a free throw in a 13-3 run that pushed the lead to 15 with 1 minute, 33 seconds remaining.
Bradford, a junior, and Betts, a senior, joined Hall on the all-tournament team.
“To win three, you have to be confident,” Hall said. “You can’t go into a game thinking you’re not going to win. You’re there, so you might as well win.”
Hall said he learned a lot from Curry, who was the team leader last season. He said he felt he stepped up and took charges and did whatever it took to lead a balanced attack to another championship.
“We had two things to prove,” Hall said. “They said we couldn’t do it without Curry, so we stepped up and did it anyway. Then they said we couldn’t do it without coach Wallace. We just took hard work in the summer and we let coach Plott know what we liked to do — run up and down the floor — and we got him into that. In the middle of the season, we started back playing our game and Pickens County ball.”
Plott, who also is the school’s football coach, returned to Pickens County High before the start of the school year. He knew coming in he didn’t want to overhaul a program that coach Russ Wallace, who left the school to become boys basketball coach at Class 6A Buckhorn High in Madison County, had built into a perennial championship contender.
In 2010, Wallace led Pickens County to the first state championship in school history when it beat Houston County 88-86 in triple overtime in the Class 2A final.
In 2011, Pickens County won the Class 1A championship, beating Cedar Bluff 70-62 in overtime.
This season, Plott said he watched and learned and played to the Tornadoes’ strength as an aggressive, pressing team. He said he only had to “fuss” at the team three or four times in the season when he thought it wasn’t doing what it needed to do.
Plott said the expectations and the pressure surrounding the program never was an issue.
“These kids knew what it took to win, and we were going to go out and play good defense,” Plott said. “I told them all year if we go out and play good defense, we’re going to have a chance against anybody.”
The players credited Plott for trusting them and knowing they had what it takes to deliver a three-peat. Betts Jr. said Plott was more “laid back” than Wallace but that he also had a serious side that the team recognized and knew when it saw it that it had to get down to business.
“I know a couple of games he got onto us and said we weren’t playing like we were supposed to be playing,” Betts Jr. said. “We kept playing defense and worked on it and got better and went out and did the job.”
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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