RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK — The mood around the NCHSAA basketball state championship press conference on Monday had a Thanksgiving-like feel to it.
As the association introduced each of the 16 head coaches who will try to lead their respective team to glory on Saturday, most gave remarks of how special this week is and to how hard to road is to get to this point, whether they’ve done it before or not.
Five of the 16 teams have never played for a state title — including Kinston’s girls — while others, such as Kinston’s boys and Kernersville Bishop McGuinness’s girls, have been here multiple times. But each one was quick to point out just how difficult it is to be one of two teams left in their respective classifications at the end of the season.
According to the NCHSAA, the season began with 792 schools playing basketball, 512 of which made the state playoffs. That number was narrowed down to 64 for the regionals, and now we’re down to 16.
“It’s so hard to get here, and extremely hard to get back and play in this game,” said Kinston boys coach Perry Tyndall, whose defending 2A state championship team will play Waxhaw Cuthbertson for the second year in a row at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday at the Dean E. Smith Center in Chapel Hill.
“At Christmas, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I hope we could get there and there’s a good chance (Cuthbertson) could get there and we could play again. But in no way did I expect it to happen because it is so hard to get to this stage, and what’s happened at Kinston previously is pretty special and it says a lot about what Wells (Gulledge) was able to accomplish as head coach.”
The Cavaliers (29-3), which rallied back to defeat the Vikings (27-2) in December, lost only one senior from last year’s state 2A runner-up squad and still have Division-I talent Shelton Mitchell. But even with that combination, head coach Mike Helms never expected to return to the state finals.
“It just wouldn’t be the same unless it was Kinston (we were playing). You felt like it just had to be them,” Helms said. “We’re very excited. (Coach Tyndall and I) were just discussing how it seems like a lot of people in the community thinks it was automatic because we both had so many kids coming back and don’t realize how hard it is to get here.
“We had one of those years last year were everything just fell into place. We didn’t have injuries, nothing happed. Then this year we had a little adversity with some nagging injuries all year long. It’s been a harder road to get here. I’m hoping in a lot of aspects that’s going to make the kids appreciate how hard it is to get here.”
While Kinston and Cuthbertson will try to recreate what was an exciting game at Reynolds Coliseum last March — the Vikings won 58-55, Kinston’s girls are in the state championship for the first time in school history.
The Vikings (26-4) will play Canton Pisgah (26-6) at noon at the Dean Dome for the 2A girls championship.
The Bears won the state championship as a 3A school in 1989.
“It’s a special occasion. You never know when you’re going to get here,” Kinston coach Hubert Quinerly said. “With our girls, they’re so excited. They’re going to get in (the gym) and practice hard today and we just don’t want to lose track of the moment.”
Blue heaven
There are several storylines surrounding the fact that Saturday’s state championship games involving Kinston will be held in the Dean Dome.
This year’s title game marks the fifth anniversary of Kinston’s first boys basketball state championship from its 2008 win over Trinity, which took place at the Dean Dome. But perhaps the most intriguing is when Kinston’s girls tip off it will be the first official game played on UNC’s floor since it fell to Duke over the weekend.
In that game, the Blue Devils led from start to finish and left the Dean Dome with a 69-53 win.
Quinerly, an avid UNC fan, may look to the darker shade of blue for some inspiration this week.
“I just hope we play like Duke,” he joked.
Making history
According to freelance writer and N.C. high school basketball historian Alex Bass, when Kinston and Cuthbertson tip off Saturday it will mark the first time since 1996 that a pair of teams in the state championship had met earlier that same season.
In 1996, Southwest Guilford knocked off Thomasville, 64-57, for the state 2A title in the teams’ third meeting of the year. The two split their regular season games, Bass said.
The Vikings and Cuthbertson met back in December in the HighSchoolOT.com Holiday Invitational in Raleigh, which the Cavaliers won 50-47.
Breaking history
Of all the success Kinston has had in boys basketball since the 2006-07 season — three state titles in four appearances — the school had never won a state championship until the 2007-08 season.
It’s also never won a championship in an odd-numbered year.
On Saturday Kinston will have played in seven boys basketball state championship games since opening its doors in 1970. In odd-numbered years the Vikings are 0-2, including losses in the 3A title games in 2001 (to High Point Andrews) and 2007 (to Concord).
“It’s a good thing that I’m not superstitious or I’d be really, really worried,” Tyndall said. “This may be strange but I don’t even think about that stuff. That ain’t gonna play in to what’s going to happen on Saturday.”
Long time coming
While Kinston’s boys are enjoying their second consecutive trip to the state finals and their fifth in the last seven seasons, several teams are either enjoying their first appearance in a state title game or ending a long drought of years without a championship.
Kinston’s girls are joined by Graham River Mill Academy as a pair of girls teams who are making their first appearance in a title game. Kinston’s opponent, Pisgah, hasn’t played for a state title since winning a 3A championship in 1989. Chapel Hill’s girls are back for the first time since 1981 and Greensboro Page for the first time since 1982.
“There’s obviously a buzz going around. We have a great following in every sport as far as our community,” Pisgah coach Brandon Holloway said. “But it’s about these girls right now and what they’re doing. They’re just hungry. They’re excited to be here but they’re hungry. They want to just be all they can be.”
On the boys’ side, Rocky Mount Prep, Oxford Webb and Charlotte Olympic are making their first appearances. Raleigh Broughton is back since losing in the 1986 finals and Statesville since 1985.
Playing the best
Of the seven other girls teams in the state championship field, Kinston has played two of them this season. The Vikings lost to 4A East champion Raleigh Millbrook — the defending state champ — 56-34 on Dec. 8. On Dec. 29 they fell to 3A East champion Chapel Hill 58-46.
“That helped. We didn’t play our best basketball at that time but it still helps,” Quinerly said. “You can always go back to the film and watch it to see what you did wrong and what you did well.”
Managing Editor Bryan C. Hanks contributed to this notebook. Ryan Herman can be reached at 252-559-1073 or Ryan.Herman@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter: @KFPSports.