Mitchell McCurry got a chance to taste his first championship success last year as a young coach when he led the Louisville Lady Wildcats to their second state championship in the last five seasons and now his plate is growing full.
In the offseason, LHS hired McCurry to also run the boys basketball program which means on top of working to repeat as Class 4A state champs with the girls, McCurry is implementing his blueprint with the boys team as well.
“Losing a lot of girls from last year, it’s been a tough balance this season,” McCurry said. “On one end of the spectrum, you’re getting the girls to mature and prepare and then getting the boys up to speed to my style of play. It’s been tough but we’re coming along.”
After leading the team to a 26-3 record last season, McCurry lost a huge chunk of production. Four different starters moved on to play college basketball and McCurry is working with almost an entirely new starting lineup.
“It’s been a struggle trying to get four new starters together but we’re growing. There are a lot of small things that we have to fix,” McCurry said. “We’re leaning heavily on a freshman in Amber Haynes to help us in scoring. She’s going to be an incredible talent for us in the future. We return Kelis Vaughn from last year who played in the state championship game. We had a transfer from Noxapater in Serenity Moore who was the MVP in their district and We just got Faith Moore back from injury who is really going to be big for us this year in the post.”
Even with a young, inexperienced team, Louisville doesn’t back down from challenges.
McCurry made a challenging non-conference schedule that has the team out to a 4-4 start this year with losses to Hartfield, New Hope, Booneville and Columbus but they’ve also beaten Columbus and West Point. The coach wanted his team to get a taste at some good teams to prepare themselves for what’s ahead in district play and that’s coming to fruition.
“It’s just a Louisville thing. we always play up because it prepares you for the road ahead,” McCurry said. “It’s taught me a lot about the team and allowed us to grow from our mistakes and look at the things that we really need to improve upon as a team.”
Just as there have been no excuses for McCurry with his girls team, there remains none for the boys in their 2-4 start to the year.
At Louisville, coaches have grown accustomed to waiting until December to field a complete team. With a football dynasty like the Wildcats have produced, basketball takes a backseat for some players. McCurry’s first team hasn’t stopped learning, however, and they own wins over Hartfield Academy and Lafayette with losses to Columbus, New Hope and West Point.
“The biggest thing we focused on is execution. We want to execute the small things to be successful later,” McCurry said. “We’ve had a really good group of six kids and we have four more coming in with football that will help us. Foul trouble has been an issue for us and I think the football players will help us add that depth.
“Cameron Ingram is back. He’s our leading rebounder and scorer at 18 points and 12 rebounds. Naj Coburn is going to be huge for us this year as a sophomore averaging 16 and five. Once we get the football boys back this week . Semaj Knowles will make an immediate impact. TayQuon McKinney is a big kid that’s going to help us as well as Kamron Triplett because of their size and athleticism.”
Louisville went to Starkville on Tuesday to take on the Yellow Jackets and played against Noxubee County at home on Thursday. The two teams will be back in action next Tuesday at Leake Central and will be playing in the Winston Classic at Winston Academy on Saturday.
