From a dominant sophomore team in 2022, to a new team rebuilding last year, the South High Tigers boys basketball team had their work cut out for them this year. They’ve had a very successful season, with a 20-5 win-loss record. The team recently finished the regular season and are now focused on prepping for sections, where they hope to win it all.
Leading up to the conference championship, it was looking like a toss up. The team went up against Washburn, who won their first game against south, however that game was quite close, with the Tigers only losing by 6 points. Two days before the championship, however, the team’s center, Romero Walker, broke his leg in a game and was put out for the rest of the season. Partially because of Walker’s injury, the Tigers weren’t able to get the win against Washburn, putting them second in the conference.
Walker got injured during a game on Saturday February 3rd. He fell down after going for a rebound. Walker said, “I fell on my ankle kinda weird, and someone landed on it so I broke my tibia and my fibula.” He’s expected to be out for about 3 months, meaning he’ll miss the rest of the season. Due to Walker being out on injury, the team was forced to shift its starting lineup, and overall style of play. Which Walker confirms has been a difficult transition. “We should’ve won our rematch with Washburn and Southwest. Pretty much these last 3 losses should’ve been wins, but with the injury and everything, we couldn’t quite do it.” Walker added.
Along with an unfortunate run of losses, the team’s morale has been down since Walker got hurt. “We were doing really well before and that stopped, which definitely brought some of the guys down.” Walker shared. The team has been doing their best to adapt to not having Walker with them on the court. Even though Walker can’t play for the rest of his senior season, he’s still been showing up to the games. He even made it to seniors night to stand with his team. Despite his unfortunate injury, Walker had an undeniably successful first part of the season.
The Tigers are doing much better than they did last year in the 22-23 season, having more than twice as many wins. Coach Joseph Hyser, has been coaching since 1992 and became head coach of the team in 1996. He said “There’ve been 3 teams that have really stood out in terms of win-loss success rate. And this team is definitely up there with the best of them.” He went on to say that he thinks much of the success is due to “The players taking it upon themselves to improve over the summer.” Captain Poet Davis shares “Practices have been more detailed this year, you know focusing on things that we messed up in games so we can really do better.” On top of this new practice style, the team has a new point guard, an integral position that the team has been missing in previous years. That point guard is Jumarion Weh, who was previously at Edison High School. Hyser said, “He’s really made a huge difference in giving us a strong back court.”
Almost all of the core players on the team are seniors, which could put the team in a rough spot for next year. That being said, Hyser expects that the seniors will “Be leaving a legacy and good example for the younger players.” He went on to say that “It’ll be a totally different team next year, but I think it’ll just be a matter of time before they get back up. I mean all these kids are very committed and dedicated as well.” Hyser believes it’ll be especially difficult to replace the crucial role Walker has played by being a 6 Foot 7 Inch center, which “Don’t just grow on trees.” Davis agrees that the team will be able to do well even when the seniors leave, “As long as they follow what we’ve put down this year they’ll be good.”
It’s especially difficult to plan for upcoming seasons when the coaches don’t know which players are going to stay on the team until the beginning of the school year. Many serious high school players play for the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) during the off season to stay in shape and improve their skills. Because of the cross school introductions within AAU, Hyser shared that many players “Recruit each other and move around [in order] to form their own ‘super teams’ so to speak.” While this is good for the players, allowing them to play at a higher level, it makes it hard for the coaches to plan out their team. “We don’t know if the athletes that played for us last year will return or not.” Hyser added.
The success of the team has benefitted the players in more ways than just athletic improvement. Davis shares that, “The coaches made basketball more fun for all of us, and when I’m at various events people know me just from being on this team.” Davis has also acknowledged that his versatility from playing different positions has helped him get noticed and given him more opportunities for college. Hyser also said “We’ve had to work with the players on getting up their academics as well. We’ve had players who were close to not being eligible to play but they made it, and I think that encouragement really makes them feel appreciated and want to play harder for us.”
Regardless of how the rest of the season goes, this team has seen incredible improvements since past years, and has helped the athletes be better players, students, and people.
