Photo: Glencoe’s Garrett Morgan (2) drives for a layup as Sardis’ Jackson Holcomb (left) and Cole Lankford defend during the Yellow Jackets’ 71-39 victory in boys basketball on Tuesday, Dec. 17 at GHS. (Chris McCarthy/Messenger)
By Chris McCarthy/Publisher
An 0-2 start to the season may have been the best thing that happened to the 2024-25 Glencoe High boys basketball team.
“I knew that Gadsden City was pretty athletic and would really push us, and I’d heard that Oxford was going to have one of the best teams in the history of Oxford basketball,” said Glencoe head coach Ryan Chambless. “You always want to win, but you schedule games like that to show you in what areas you have to get better. It showed us right out of the gate of the things we needed to work on. But if you can run up and down the court with those teams, you can run up and down the court with anybody. I definitely think those two losses helped us down the road.”
As an example, Chambless pointed to Glencoe’s 88-79 victory over Hokes Bluff on Dec. 6, a game during which the Yellow Jackets trailed by seven points at halftime and tied the game at 67-67 n the final seconds of the fourth quarter. Glencoe outscored the Eagles 16 to 7 in the second overtime to notch the win.
“Two years ago, we would have lost games like that,” he said. “We were able to fight to get back in it, and a lot of it came down to experience. I don’t that there’s any substitute for that.”
Since the setbacks to Gadsden City and Oxford, the Yellow Jackets have gone 9-1 and outscored the opposition by an average of 88 to 68.
“We’ve been pressuring pretty good on defense, which gets us out on some fast breaks,” said Chambless. “For the most part, we’ve been shooting the ball well.”
With four starters returning from a team that won the county and area tournaments and made it to the subregional playoffs, the Yellow Jackets have seasoned veterans in senior Wade Segrest, juniors Garrett Morgan and Jayden Patton and sophomores Grant Smith and Bryce Borntrager.
“Garrett, Wade and Jayden have played on the varsity since they were freshmen, and they’ve probably played around 100 games over the last three years,” said Chambless. “That experience is helping us win close games. Also, this is the first year since I’ve been here that we don’t have several ninth graders on the varsity. With those younger guys on the JV where they need to be, it’s helped us out physically.”
A deep rotation is allowing Chambless to give his starters more of a breather than in past seasons.
“We have a variety of guys who bring different skill sets, and they all play important roles,” he said. “Jalen Hunter and Levi Lasseter have done good job of coming off the bench, and Aiden Johnson and Davis Honeycutt have given us good minutes at the guard spots. Whenever we have to match up against a big guy, Cooper Gomez and Cole Potter can fill that role. A lot of those guys were starters on the junior varsity last year, so they know what to expect.”
Chambless pointed to the team’s superior condition as a factor in the Yellow Jackets’ solid start to the season.
“We’ve been running since November, and just about everything we do in practice is a full-court drill. The way that we really push it in practice makes the games easier, especially in the fourth quarter. We’re still not in the best shape that I’d like us to be in, but we’re getting there.”
Chambless noted that effort has never been an issue with this team.
“They all play hard, game in and game out, and that’s all I can ask for. This group wants to win and wants to play for each other. It’s just a good group of guys as a whole. As long as our effort is good and we keep getting better every time we go out there, we’ll be fine.”