Season Preview: White House
White House High School is a smaller school capable of making a bigger impact in 2017-2018. Despite an enrollment under 900 students, WHHS introduces quite a few skilled guards to Sumner County.
PrepHoopsTennessee got a good look at the Blue Devils earlier this month against Beech.
With a week to let the initial matchup settle, it is a good time to hunt for overriding traits of this edition of the White House Blue Devils, through the eyes of White House Head Coach Gary Smith and to a lesser degree recent opponent Beech Head Coach Kip Brown.
“We had to play well to give ourselves a chance to beat them,” said WHHC Smith after the victory. “We jumped out to a big lead and they spent the whole game cutting in to it and they finally took the lead on us late.”
Early season struggles are intriguing. Results are nice, but perhaps more important than wins in the early stretch is team reaction to turbulence.
Successful teams generally find a way to meld in tough times, while unsuccessful teams typically fray and tatter before completely ripping apart.
“I think the thing that impressed me the most was, once they caught us and passed us in the fourth quarter, we turned around and answered,” said Coach Smith. “Took the lead back and then went on out. I thought that showed a lot of courage on our kids’ part.”
Closing time:White House @ Beech 4Q https://t.co/lMtNx4ZQyy
— Prep Hoops Tennessee (@PrepHoopsTN) November 18, 2017
The Vets
Coach Gary Smith really likes the Blue Devil team, largely because they have a history of winning basketball championships.
“Even though we are still young we are a veteran team even though we play mostly sophomores and juniors,” said Coach Smith. “These guys had great careers at White House Middle School. Coach (Andrew) Lowery over there did a really good job with them. They had two teams in a row, one of them won middle school state, I think and then one of them won the county tourney maybe for the first time for White House.”
Winning is rarely an accident. If one young man finds a way to win, then he brings that knowledge base to his new program. Better yet…if a group of young men collectively found a way to win before, then they obviously bring that collective spirit of success to their program.
White House is a group of young men comfortable with winning and accustomed to winning.
The White House Middle School coaches “kept them well for us,” said Coach Smith. “We are just reaping what they sow for us.”
Because most of the team grew up together they have an added layer of understanding for each other.
“It is just not anything we have done,” shared Coach Smith in slightly overstated humility. “We just inherited good kids that have been well coached and now we are getting the benefits.”
Skill Sets
Modern basketball veered towards multi-skilled guards a few years ago. Officials, usually, whistling hand checks and arm bars resulted in an emphasis on guards who could create, shoot, and basically do everything. Powerful, bulging upper bodies became less in demand as physicality seeped out of the game at most levels.
Thankfully this White House bunch play in this era because they are inarguably small of stature. Taking bumps isn’t these guards’ preferred plan of attack. Dashing, scoring, and shooting are.
Identifying a single White House primary ball-handler is like believing you know the story from reading the headline. You might not be wrong, but you will certainly be missing a lot.
Jared Ward, Evan Webster, Noah Johnston, Jacob McDonald all handle plenty and certified wings Kevin James and Kyle Elliott are more than competent on the dribble too.
“We didn’t guard ’em very well at all,” admitted Beech Head Coach Kip Brown after the narrow defeat. “We are fouling too much. We are getting beat off the dribble.”
The lateral mobility of bigger guards is always a concern and facing White House, Beech had bigger guards. In their defense, White House was the second game of a literal back-to-back pairing.
“Right now our transition defense is really bad,” shared Coach Brown. “We are not recognizing things quick enough and basketball is too fast for us to not recognize things quick.”
Together the diminutive darters of White House High School easily elude traps and comfortably knife through presses. It is a cohesive, capable unit.
The future Blue Devil success is a predetermined conclusion.