Kevin Morris is using a system which he thinks all basketball players would enjoy.
The Apalachee High School Wildcats are employing a fast-paced, up-tempo, pressing style of play which has already paid dividends during the 2012-2013 season. AHS is off to a 6-2 start overall and a 3-2 mark in Region 8-AAAAA.
“There’s no doubt our players are enjoying it,” Morris said. “Anyone who plays or has played, would love to play this system. We run, press and shoot quick. Anyone would love to play it, but not everyone can.”
Adding to the enjoy of the new system is the fact that Morris doesn’t just go deep on the bench, he uses the entire bench. In several games this season, all 15 players on the roster have seen action. Morris often sends five new players on the court at a time in an effort to keep players fresh.
“I’ve never gone this deep on the bench before,” Morris said. “In the past, we may have used nine or 10 players, but we are using 13 most every game and sometimes all 15.”
Being able to have a deep bench was key to playing this style of basketball for the Wildcats.
“If we didn’t have so much help coming off the bench then we couldn’t have played this system,” Morris said. “On any given night we will have 10 or 11 players score points. We may be close to having everyone score in double figures in at least one game.”
In Friday’s buzzer-beating victory against Loganville, Cameron Blakley and Kamar Baldwin both scored 14 points. While Blakely had been a mainstay for the Wildcats for several seasons, Baldwin is making an immediate impact as a freshman, which is not surprising to his coach who predicted weeks before the season started that the new varsity player was going to be something special.
The balanced scoring attack against the Red Devils included nine points from Ahmed Ahmed with Qua Cleveland, Rakim Peters and Jermaine Smith scoring eight each.
It was Smith who went the length of the court to score the game winning basket as time expired.
The excitement generated by the on-the-court play of the AHS team helped generate a huge student section Friday night.
“Our students were unbelievable,” Morris said. “We had a whole section of the bleachers filled with students who were decked out in costumes. We haven’t had an environment like that for a basketball game in a long time.”
The Wildcat players have been quick in learning the new system, but Morris said the process is an ongoing one.
“They’ve picked up everything we’ve thrown at them,” the coach said. “We are still progressing though. There were some things we wanted to get installed before Christmas and some we want to add after. If you do the same thing over and over then good teams will make adjustments. We still have more to learn before we are done.”
AHS was scheduled to face county and region foe Winder-Barrow Wednesday (today) and will then step out of Region 8-AAAAA play Friday at Hebron and Saturday at Monroe Area.
