Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 8, 1994 TAG: 9402080174
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON and MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Burrell Paye is crouched down, scuttling back and forth like a crab across the locker room beneath the Salem Civic Center. "You do it like this. . . . like this. . . . and like this."
He's 55, with salt-and-pepper gray hair, but he moves fast. He's making a point: In basketball, you can't play defense standing straight up. You bend your knees and move your feet.
Around the room, Derrick Hines and the rest of William Fleming High's team listen silently. Paye shoots a look at Hines and tells his young star: Stop letting your man go where he wants. "Take charge. Dictate to him what he's going to do."
Hines knows Paye is right. He knows he had a lousy first half. Hines vows to himself to play harder. Reynolds - Hines' friend and teammate since they were in grade school - is telling himself simply this: "I refuse to lose."
But Fleming is losing - to Patrick Henry High, its cross-town rival.
PH 27-Fleming 21.
In the PH locker room, Coach Woody Deans isn't satisfied. He knows his team's lead would be bigger if it hadn't fumbled the ball away and let Hines score in the final moments of the half.
"Come on now," Deans says, clapping his hands. "We're only halfway done."
By the time the Fleming team gets back to the playing floor, the players have only 30 seconds to warm up. Reggie Reynolds sits on the bench, without taking any warmup.
Reynolds has won a scholarship to play college ball at Coastal Carolina, but he's got something to prove tonight. He's never played his best against PH. Also, he's missed much of the season with illness - he listened to the first PH game this season on the radio.
Paye asks if he's going to take a few shots. Reynolds tells him no. He's ready.
Thirty seconds into the third quarter, Reynolds shows he is indeed ready: He gets the ball and shoots. He has a fluid form on his shot that most players envy. He rises high and releases the ball at the height of his jump. It spins softly into the hoop.
PH 27-Fleming 23.
Patrick Henry's lead disappears. Fleming will score the next 10 points, the game will see-saw back and forth with more than a dozen lead changes - until Reynolds gets one more chance to prove his skill under pressure. nn
Last week, a quarter-million high-school basketball players played more than 25,000 varsity games across the United States.
Last Wednesday night's game between PH and Fleming had many of the elements that make high school basketball interesting: Young players fighting to overcome inexperience and prove their worth. Experienced players trying to show they're still the best - and that they deserve the attentions of college scouts. Veteran coaches working to meld a diverse group of teen-agers into a team. A rivalry that never lessens even when the teams aren't competing for a championship.
"You could be like 3-17 throughout the season, but if you beat PH, that really makes you feel better," Fleming's Reynolds says.
"It's bragging rights - we see each other at the mall," PH star Shannon Taylor says.
Most years the teams scrap over the top spot in the Roanoke Valley District. This year, both came into the game with records of 9 wins and 4 losses.
Still, it's been a tough year for Fleming, which was expected to win the district.
"We've been snakebit," Paye says. "We've just had no luck at all."
Illness and injury have meant Fleming hasn't had all its players together since the second game of the season.
Patrick Henry has been luckier. Coming off its worst season in three decades, PH wasn't expected to compete with Fleming's talent. But it has: Last month PH beat Fleming 61-60 in triple overtime. That game has haunted Fleming, pumped up the PH players' confidence - and made the rivalry all the more intense.
Pre-game.
Fleming's bus reaches the Salem Civic Center two hours before tip-off. Players and coaches walk down a concrete runway, smelling of old buttered popcorn, to deposit their stuff in the locker room. A girls game between the two schools is starting up above.
"Just sit upstairs and rest," Paye tells his plays. "Save your energy."
Paye and his assistant, Marshall Ashford, find a seat high in the arena, away from the players.
Paye's teams have made it to the state regional tournament every year since Jimmy Carter left the White House. He's been coaching 34 years, long enough to endure lots of pre-game waits, and lots of up and downs.
"They're a strange bunch," he says of this year's young team. "They get ready late. They don't get psyched up like kids use to. I used to like to be psyched out of my mind."
Paye laces a mischievous humor with old-school toughness. He's gotten in the trouble in the past for some of his run-ins with referees.
"I'm not that bad, am I, Coach?" he says to Ashford.
Ashford shakes his head and laughs.
"Terrible," Ashford says.
"I don't know where I get this reputation," Paye says.
PH coach Woody Deans is just as intense, but in a more low-key way.
It's been seven years since he last got a technical foul for haranguing the referees. "Our team lost by one point, and I always thought I was responsible." He has restrained himself ever since.
Fifteen purple and yellow championship banners hang in Patrick Henry's gym. Deans, 45, has had a hand in every one of them as a player, assistant coach or head coach. Two banners are for state championships.
Deans chauffeurs his players home from practices in his mini-van. He rewards them after every win with brownies baked by his wife.
In the locker room Wednesday, he carefully lays out each player's uniform, as he does before every game. Once the players file in and get dressed, he turns the same meticulous attention to preparing them for the game.
Tonight, his focus is on how his team will defend against Hines, a short, flashing-quick junior who has attracted the interest of many college recruiters. Deans wants Quinton Twine to shadow Hines wherever he goes on the court. The other four PH players will play a zone defense.
"Remember, the fewer times he touches the basketball, that increases our chance to win the basketball game," Deans says. This is in line with his whole coaching philosophy: "Don't let the stars beat you."
Twine tells himself to stay out of foul trouble. In the last game, he committed a couple of "silly" fouls on Hines, trying to stick to him a little too zealously. "Just stay in front of him," Twine instructs himself.
In the Fleming locker room, Paye tells his players: "If you don't want to go out and win, then you don't have any blood running through your veins."
Tip-off
William Fleming wins the opening tip. James Stokes misses the first shot of the game.
At the other end of the floor, PH's three muscle players - Shannon Taylor, Eugene Cook and Chris Combs - push their way for rebounds and baskets near the hoop. All three also play football. Fleming's younger and thinner players seem outmatched. And PH's defense is keeping Hines from using his quickness to get easy shots.
Taylor makes a basket with four minutes left in the quarter, and Paye calls a time out to regroup.
PH 11-Fleming 4.
Deans is pleased. Almost everything they talked about in practice is working. A special play PH had been practicing to get the ball into Taylor worked perfectly.
Reggie Reynolds - the unknown quantity as far as PH's game plan - tried a 3-point shot for Fleming, but missed it.
The game resumes, and Taylor keeps scoring.
Taylor, a senior, is the Roanoke Valley's biggest sport star. He's been a key player on PH's basketball team since it won the state championship in 1992. He's an even bigger football talent: Two days before the Fleming game, he signed a letter-of-intent to take a football scholarship at the University of Virginia.
He's 6-foot-5 and 230 pounds - a tough competitor who's had a tough life. He lives in the Lansdowne public housing complex with his mom and brother. The family doesn't have a car, so his mom can't always get to his games. His dad died of cancer three years ago and never got a chance to see his son blossom into stardom.
"It's been rough for my family," Taylor says. "We've been down. We've had to scratch a long time."
In the first six minutes of the game, Taylor rocks Fleming for eight points. Fleming's big players can't stop the even bigger Taylor.
"They're not ready to play," Paye tells his assistants. Paye calls a second time out.
PH 15-Fleming 6.
Paye chides his players. "They're sprinting up here. And we're walking. You can't win without physical effort. I'm talking hustle. You can't play it cool." He's so emotional his Tennessee drawl rises to a grating squeak. " have to hit the boards. You have to play hard."
PH is the team that's hitting the boards, though.
Junior forward Chris Combs grabs an offensive rebound and scores. Deans loves it. Combs - the son of former Virginia Tech and pro star Glen Combs - hustles off the floor as the quarter ends.
Deans rubs Combs on his crew-cutted head.
"Good job, Chris!"
PH 17-Fleming 6.
Second quarter.
Fleming battles back.
The ball goes inside to Fleming sophomore Sterling Tate. He flips it to senior center William Fitzgerald, who puts it in the hoop. Then Fleming's Keath Hampton steals the ball and scores.
PH 17-Fleming 10.
Combs is whistled for traveling, then picks up his third foul. Deans sits him on the bench. Combs' teammates say he gets down on himself when things aren't going well. Now he looks like someone has punched him in the gut.
Paye is getting hustling play out of one of his young players, 15-year-old sophomore Sterling Tate.
Tate is inexperienced, but he says he has no fear anymore about mixing things up: "I don't consider myself a sophomore. I go straight to it. I like to prove myself."
It hasn't always been easy. At the end of the third overtime of the first PH game, Tate went to the free throw line with 0.8 of a second left. He hit the first shot. The second one bounced out and PH won by one point.
PH's Taylor expects Tate to be a great player, but right now Taylor likes to see Tate come in. Tate is lanky and wears "those Robocop knee pads," as some PH players call Tate's blue foam rubber braces. Taylor taunted Tate without mercy during the first PH-Fleming game: "He can't guard me. Look at his knees.'
Early on tonight, Tate gets a small revenge. Taylor, near the basket, takes the ball up overhead shoots. Tate comes from behind, reaches out with a long arm and swats the ball away.
Mostly, though, Fleming can't do much to stop Taylor. After Fleming's two quick baskets to start the second quarter, Taylor nails a jump shot to give his team breathing room.
PH 19-Fleming 10.
Then Fleming's Reynolds gets into the act. He grabs an offensive rebound and dribbles outside to the red line marking the three-point arc.
He wheels, jumps and shoots. It's good.
PH 19-Fleming 13.
PH pulls back to a 10-point lead, but then play gets sloppy. Fleming scores. PH loses the ball. Hines drives all the way to the basket, but misses a leaping shot. The ball heads back toward the PH end, then squirts away. Fleming picks up the ball and Hines gets an easy layup just before the half ends.
PH 27-Fleming 21.
Halftime.
Inside the PH locker room, the players are quiet, gulping down drink boxes of Exceed "energy liquid" - water, salt, sugar, potassium and other minerals. They have a six-point lead, but it's too early to celebrate.
Deans tells his big men to keep rebounding. Don't let them rebound their own missed shots and give them a second chance to score.
He calls these second chances, "stick backs," and in the world of basketball under Woody Deans, stick backs are a sin.
Paye is making adjustments in Fleming's offense and defense. He puts his team into a full-court pressure defense - better to take advantage of his players' superior quickness.
The X's and O's aside, Paye is trying to kick up his players intensity level.
"You've got to . . . "
He writes "WANT TO WIN" on the board. The chalk clicks loudly.
"Or maybe you want to, but you don't know how. You win with this . . . "
He writes "HUSTLE" so emphatically that the chalk board gently floats down on his head as he turns back to face his players. Nobody snickers.
"It takes that on every play."
Third quarter.
Reynolds comes out, without a warmup, and hits his long jump shot to start the second half. Fleming sends two players to double-team the man with the ball.
PH's players slice the ball through the defense, but then - perhaps because they're rattled by the press - the big men miss easy shots right under the basket. Frustration sweeps over their faces.
The momentum has shifted. Fleming scores again and Deans calls timeout.
"The first three minutes here are big time!" Deans tells his players.
The halftime calm in his voice is gone. Deans is stern now. Louder.
"Attack! Attack the press!"
Paye is excited: "We want to get them running up and down the floor."
Hines nails a jump shot to tie the score.
Fleming 27-PH 27.
A hurried pass slips through Taylor's hands and goes out of bounds. Combs picks up his fourth foul for PH. One more and Combs is out of the game.
Fitzgerald scores - and Fleming has the lead.
Fitzgerald scores again, and then Hines dribbles the length of the floor and puts in a driving shot.
Fleming 33-PH 27.
Paye's team has scored 12 straight points.
With less than four minutes to go in the quarter, though, the referee calls Hines for a "five-second violation," an unusual call. Fleming's momentum slows.
"Get a good shot now. Get a good shot," Deans calls from the bench.
PH scores twice and then Tate throws the ball away at the other end. Frustrated, he commits a quick foul trying to steal the ball back.
A hard pass slips through Fitzgerald's hands and goes out of bounds.
At the other end, Fitzgerald skies, catches a PH shot in the air and slaps it away. Hines grabs it and dribbles the length of the floor, then gets fouled. He sinks both free throws.
Fleming 35-PH 31.
PH storms back with two baskets.
Then, after two Fleming free throws, PH's Eugene Cook scores and gets fouled. He makes the free throw.
PH 38-Fleming 37.
In the waning seconds of the third quarter, Tate gets the ball, wheels and shoots. It's not even close, ricocheting off the backboard. But he jumps, grabs the ball and shoots again. It rolls around the hoop - and in.
Fleming 39-PH 38.
"Stick backs. Stick backs," Deans says with disgust.
Fourth quarter.
The score keeps flip-flopping. Both teams are scrambling, intense.
With 6 minutes left, Taylor scores to put PH up by 1.
At the other end, Sterling Tate takes a pass, turns and shoots. The young sophomore hits another key basket.
46-PH 45.
The lead changes hands twice more, then Fleming's Hampton hits a jump shot. Fleming leads 49-46 with just over 4 minutes left.
Paye is excited, yelling instructions to his players. His retinue of assistants notices he's gone outside of the "Coach's Box," the painted line that restricts coaches from roaming too far down the sideline. This is no time to get a technical foul.
"Get him back in the box, Get him back in the box," the assistants chorus.
Ashford grabs Paye by his coat tails and reels him back in.
PH scores twice to take the lead.
PH 50-Fleming 49.
Paye calls for a timeout. Three minutes to go.
He implores his players to pack in near the basket on defense. "They don't have an outside shooter," he says. Then: "Don't give me those sour looks. I'm trying to help you win the ballgame."
Deans scribbles basketball diagrams in chalk on the painted floor as his players look on. Watch for Fleming's double-team, he says. Watch for man-to-man. Watch for their zone.
Back in the game, Hines, at 5-foot-9 the smallest player on the floor, grabs a rebound. With his back to the basket, he jumps, spins in the air and shoots. The ball swishes through the hoop.
Fleming 51-PH 50.
"That stinks," Deans says to nobody in particular. "That was a big-time rebound right there."
Less than two minutes left. PH's Cook gets fouled.
He goes to the free throw line to shoot the one-and-one. If he hits the first shot, he gets another. If he misses, the ball is up for grabs.
He misses - but Taylor finds the ball and scores.
PH 52-Fleming 51.
Then Hampton draws a foul.
Now it is Fleming's turn at the one-and-one.
Hampton, Fleming's best free throw shooter, is the last player PH wants to foul. He sinks the first shot. With 1:13 left in the game, the score is tied again.
Hampton's second shot bounces off.
PH takes the ball and its players set their offense. They are patient. They pass the ball around.
Fleming's defenders pack in near the basket, daring PH to try the outside shot.
Everybody in the Civic Center knows the ball is going to Taylor. He takes a pass, shoots and scores.
He has 26 points. There are 48 seconds remaining in the game.
PH 54-Fleming 52.
Now Fleming has the ball. The passes whip from player to player. Reynolds sets himself up at a spot 24 feet from the basket, in a hole in the PH zone defense.
He catches a pass. No hesitation: He jumps and shoots. He knows it's good as soon as it leaves his hand.
It's a three-pointer.
Fleming 55-PH 54.
PH hurries back. The ball goes, again, to Taylor. He misses the shot but gets his own rebound. There's a scramble, and he falls backward. A whistle. The referee calls a walking violation.
Fleming has the ball - and the lead - with 19.5 seconds left.
Deans calls timeout.
Deans' players are discouraged, but he tries to get them to concentrate on the next play: "One steal and a bucket and we're winning the ball game."
Fleming's players are giddy, slapping hands, but Paye is all business: "Listen up, we have not won the ball game yet."
Hampton catches the pass and dribbles down the sideline. PH doesn't want to foul Hampton, but they can't let him dribble away the final seconds. A PH defender hacks Hampton across the arm.
The clock stops at 14.5 seconds.
As he waits for the ball, Hampton bends over and touches the floor with both hands. He likes to get fouled at the end of the game: "I know I'm gonna make 'em."
He swishes both shots.
Fleming 57-PH 54.
Now PH has to score a three-point shot just to tie the game. Taylor gets the ball. A pair of Fleming players jump at him when he launches a long, arching shot.
The shot bounces away. There's a tussle.
Fleming's Reynolds snags the rebound with one powerful arm.
PH fouls him to stop the clock.
Just 5.1 seconds to play - still enough time for PH to tie the game if Reynolds misses his free throw.
Reynolds misses.
The ball bounces into Fitzgerald's hands for Fleming. All he needs to do is hold the ball and let the final seconds tick away. Instead, he turns and shoots.
The shot misses, PH gets the ball. Timeout. One more chance - with 1.7 seconds to go.
Deans scrambles to come up with a play. But there's only time for a desperation shot from wherever the ball comes into play.
Paye, hoarse, tells the Fleming players players: "We're not gonna let 'em shoot the three-pointer."
PH throws a long pass. Stokes intercepts the ball, dribbles it once and throws it the length of the court. It's still in the air when the buzzer sounds.
Final score: Fleming 57-PH 54.
Post-game.
PH's locker room is quiet. The worst part, the players say, was watching Fleming celebrate. Taylor stares at the floor, slowly unlacing his size-14 sneakers.
"They got stick backs on you. That was the key," Deans says. "Stick backs will kill you."
But Deans reminds his team the season isn't over. "The true character of a basketball team is coming back from a tough game like this," he says.
In Fleming's locker room, everyone is congratulating Reynolds on his big three-point shot. "That was for y'all, baby," he says. "That was for us."
Paye cuts off the celebration. Before he congratulates his players on a tough comeback, he has some business to attend to.
"We've got a game tomorrow," Paye says briskly, scribbling a diagram on the chalk board. " Watch. Watch. This is for future reference. When we run the 3-game against the Diamond . . . "
by CNB