I was warned
I can’t say I wasn’t warned.
Coach Isaac Pitts of Quality Education told me if I watched his basketball team play, I wouldn’t be able to view a “normal” high-school game the same way.
He was right. And again, I can’t say I wasn’t warned.
Watching QEA beat Oak Ridge Military Academy on a tip-in at the buzzer last week was a curious sight. The tiny gym at Oak Ridge was mostly full, a handful of high-school Cadets in one corner, die-hard military men and women scattered throughout, and gawking onlookers, presumably unable to believe they were watching teenagers — and not grown men — play the game before them.
The players are so big, so fast, that especially in the first half, there was barely room for either team to complete the most rudimentary of passes.
Quincy Miller, Aaron Bowen, Juvonte Reddic, Dominic Pointer…..QEA has the best players I have laid eyes on this year. And I didn’t even get to see the Pharaohs point guard, Baylor signee Stargell Love, because he was out with an ankle injury. Oak Ridge is no slouch—Jay Canty, a 6-5 guard who has signed with Xavier, is a beast. So is Jacob Lawson.
It’s a shame QEA doesn’t play close to home more often. Watching the Pharaohs play is to catch a glimpse at tomorrow’s major college game, and quite probably, tomorrow’s NBA.
But it’s not a high-school basketball team in the traditional sense. Not at all.