You won’t find a player on Bruton High’s boys basketball team who was around the last time the Panthers were still hooping this late in the season. Same goes for first-year coach Joe Dillard, who was then working as a front office assistant for the Washington Wizards in D.C.
So for a group that’s never experienced playing in the Group AA state quarterfinals at a VHSL “Super Site” – in the Panthers’ case at James Madison University’s Convocation Center this Saturday against Region II champ John Handley – under a guy sixth months into his first-ever head coaching position, the demeanor has to be something along the lines of nervous or tense, right?
“Not at all,” said junior Kapri Doucet, Bruton’s third leading scorer and hard-nosed defender. “We’re loose and we’re confident. We feel like we’ve been playing pretty well lately, and when we’re doing the things we’re good at, we feel like the only people who can beat us are ourselves.”
Added Dillard, who in his first season at the helm led Bruton to runner-up finishes in both the Bay Rivers District and Region I tournaments, not to mention the school’s first state tournament appearance in seven years, “That’s the attitude we’ve had all along.”
The Panthers are looking back on last game, albeit a loss, positively because it served as an eye-opener. After trailing annual powerhouse and two-time defending state-champ Brunswick 22-18 at the half, Bruton’s deficit grew to double digits in the second half as the Panthers turned the ball over several times and shot the ball poorly before their late rally came up short in a 56-49 loss.
Bruton also experienced similar defeats in three regular-season meetings with Bay Rivers and Region I champ Grafton.
“We walked out of that locker room confident,” Dillard said of last week’s loss in Lawrenceville. “We wanted to turn around and play another game the next day, because everyone realized our potential if we put together a full 32 minutes.
“Grafton and Brunswick have been great preparation – we’ve played in a lot of crazy environments – so we’ve come to the conclusion that as long as we play the way we know how to play, a lot of good things come our way. It’s just a matter of consistency.”
Said junior standout Marcus Carter, the Panthers’ leading scorer and versatile defender who can play four different positions on the floor, “Brunswick’s been a top dog for the last six or seven years, so for us to go in there and only lose by seven is almost a positive since we made so many mistakes. And playing Grafton two or three times a year, that helps a lot too because it gives us that championship game feeling.”
After what Dillard called three “serious” practices to begin the week the Panthers appeared, just as Doucet said, loose during Thursday’s somewhat laid-back session that consisted mostly of shooting, light scrimmaging and ended with an unofficial dunk contest.
“The fun stuff,” Dillard said. “You got to let the kids be themselves sometimes.”
It hasn’t all been fun and games, though.
On Wednesday, Dillard held practice at William and Mary Hall so that his players could practice their sets on a longer, wider court and emulate the type environment they’ll play inside JMU’s Convocation Center on Saturday.
The two days prior were focused primarily on Dillard’s scouting report on John Handley from watching the Judges in the Region II tournament the weekend before. Dillard says he’s most concerned with athletic 6’7 forward and double-double machine Cameron Jackson, but added that Tre Brown is a speedy point guard and relentless on-ball defender.
Most recently, though, the focus has been solely in house.
“We’re just taking it like it’s another game we have to win,” Carter added. “We’re not trying to make too much of it, because if we’re worried about them and not ourselves then we’re already focusing on the wrong things.”
While the Panthers fear hyping up their opponent too much, Bruton assistant coach Terrence Green, who was the starting point guard on the last Bruton squad to reach a state quarterfinal in 2007, has been reminding his team all week to cherish the moment when it comes.
“I always tell them, especially the seniors, that it’s been a while since Bruton has been this far,” said Green, who after graduating in 2007 went on to play two years at Allegheny College before transferring to Fairmont State University. “This could be their last high school basketball game, maybe the last game ever if they don’t go on to the next level, so I remind them to keep that in perspective and to just play with all their heart.”
