It wasn’t a banner season for boys’ basketball in Union County. Only one team advanced to the state tournament and Strong fell in the first round to Viola, the eventual 1A State Champion.
Team success wasn’t at a peak, but several individuals showed they could perform at a high level. El Dorado’s Jarmel Love and Isaiah Ramey join Strong’s Emauri Newton, West Side Christian’s Zackley Pearson and Smackover’s D’Kylan Hildreth on the 2021 News-Times Boys Basketball All-Area Team.
El Dorado just missed on qualifying for the 5A State Tournament. Love led the Wildcats’ late-season surge. The 6-foot-4 senior proved difficult to stop in the low post.
“Jarmel brought a size factor that was really hard to guard. He was 6-4, 220 pounds and just a big body,” said El Dorado coach Jimmy Porter. “But he wasn’t a big body and couldn’t move. He could move well. He has really good feet for his size. He had the ability to pull people out to the 3-point line and force the bigs to have to guard him out in that area. And then anytime we had a mismatch off a switch, we felt very comfortable going inside to him. One of his last games versus White Hall, he had like 30 points. He just went off. White Hall had no answer for him. He brought that presence all year.”
Love averaged 11.8 points and 7.1 rebounds per game. The numbers don’t tell the story as he didn’t get going until later in the season.
“Jarmel played football. With this being my first year here and dealing with a year like COVID, I really didn’t get a chance to see what Jarmel could do,” said Porter. “Once he got out of football, we could actually see him in practice and after going through some games, we started to realize how effective Jarmel could be in certain areas with the ball.”
Ramey, a 5-10 point guard, led the Wildcats on the court. Porter said as his play improved, so did the team’s.
“Isaiah got better as the year went on. He really started to understand his strengths from a standpoint of getting into the paint. That probably was his biggest strength,” said Porter. “It was magnified once he learned to play under control and use his jump stops and use his body under control. He has a really fast first step. It’s like a sneaky first step. If he can use that first step and get out on that outside leg, he’s going to get to the rim. Once he realized, you know, come to a jump stop and be under control, now I can get that lay-up or make a good pass, it made him a lot better.”
Ramey averaged 12.9 points and a team high 3.8 assists.
“As far as off the court, he got better and better as the year went on. We had some stuff early on that kind of prohibited him from playing, but as he started to develop and mature as a young man, I felt he really grew into his role,” said Porter.
“I would be very confident in saying this, anytime someone was playing us man and Isaiah had the ball, he was going to get to the rim. They started to zone us to prevent him from being able to attack and get to the rim. Well, at least try to stop him, he still found ways to get to the rim.”
Newton, a 5-10 senior, led the Bulldogs from his point guard position.
“He played the point but he’s also a shooting guard. He played both of them,” said Strong coach Champ Watson. “I was very pleased with Emauri this season. He stepped up, led the team. He stepped up as a senior. He put the team on his back. What I saw was a maturation process, he began to get it. When he got his teammates into the game to get going, he’s still going to get his. So, when he got Maze involved and Daniels and Williams and Shelton, when he got those guys going, it was a great night when all those guys were contributing.”
Newton averaged 17 points, 10 assists and four steals for the Bulldogs, who finished third in the conference.
“He does it all. He can shoot the jumper. He penetrates. He kicks to the open people,” said Watson, who reiterated Newton’s best trait was being a great teammate.
“Getting them involved, getting them into game and letting his game come. He’ll get his toward the end. As long as he got those guys going, their confidence went sky high, yeah, it was a good night.”
Pearson, a 6-foot-1 senior, led West Side to an 18-3 record and the finals of the postseason tournament. Coach Randall Miller said Pearson had big shoes to fill and did a good job.
“We lost between 40 and 45 points per game this year between the seniors we lost. Where Zackley before had really focused on being our defensive stopper and led us in charges taken and things like that, even though he was a very capable scorer, he deferred a lot. This year we needed him to be that guy for us. He did that,” said Miller. “He was our first option on offense, but he also continued to be the defensive stopper for us as well. He really did a lot of different things for us this year. He’s a very intelligent defensive player. There are times we play man, and he locks up on the best one. And there are times we play a little junk, and we have somebody as a chaser and he’s rotating and helping. He always knows the game plan really well. He always executes it really well.”
Pearson averaged 18 points, 7.1 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 2.3 steals per game for the Warriors. Miller insisted his value can’t be measured in statistics.
“He was our leader this year, just kind of the guy who, at practice every day, he sets the tone in terms of activity and talking and energy and all those things,” said Miller. “He’s a really good encourager of the younger players. He did a lot for us this year.”
Hildreth, a 6-foot-4 sophomore, was a do-it-all player for the Buckaroos … literally.
“He was really a position-less guy for us,” said Smackover coach Caleb Spradlin. “If we had to label him, I’d probably say guard because he did a lot of the ball handling. He had the fewest turnovers on our team. Against any kind of pressure, I wanted the ball in his hands. So, I’d say he’s a guard, but he did it all. He can go in the post. He can bring it up. It made him a tough match-up for sure.”
Hildreth averaged 17 points and seven rebounds for the Bucks, who advanced to the regional tournament.
If there’s one area that could be improved, his coach said Hildreth isn’t really a vocal leader.
“It’s a lead by example kind of thing. He’s a quiet kid, doesn’t say a whole lot, just goes out and does what he needs to do,” said Spradlin. “He didn’t take nights off. He showed up every night. There’s some leadership in that, for sure.”