The Grady boys basketball team finished its season with a 28-4 record, the most wins in school history, and a Final Four appearance in the state tournament, but ultimately fell short of the final goal of bringing back a championship to Grady with a 77-49 loss to Jonesboro Feb. 27.
This is the farthest the Knights have gone in the state championship since Brian Weeden became the head coach in 2012, and the farthest the school has gone since 1994. The team also tied the record for most consecutive wins in a row with 12. They brought home a region championship, which was only accomplished by the 1986-87 and 1993-94 teams before now. They also drastically improved on their 14-15 record from last year.
The Knights were lead by Bucknell commit Avi Toomer, who has amassed over 1,600 points, 500 rebounds and 300 assists in his career. He also had the highest scoring game in the state this year with 52 points on Dec. 4th.
“We worked very hard as a team; we took no days off, and we fought every week,” senior Javier Russell said. “It was a very fun season with my brothers, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.”
The Jonesboro Cardinals were fresh off a 57-37 win against St. Pius X in the quarterfinals and carried their momentum into the semifinal matchup with Grady. The Cardinals were led by junior James “MJ” Walker and senior Tariq Jenkins, who had 22 and 20 points. The Knights were lead by 17 points from Toomer and a 12-point, 9-rebound performance by Tykwaan Bryant.
“Throughout the entire year, we had our up and downs; everybody thought we weren’t going to make it far, but we proved them wrong and made it to the Final Four, and I’m proud of that,” senior Bryant said. “I would rather have a state championship ring on my finger though.”
Prior to their loss to Jonesboro, the Knights traveled to Fort Valley State University to defeat the Westover Patriots 54-52 in the Elite Eight.
After opening the game with two three-pointers by Russell, the Knights entered the second quarter with an eight-point lead, but the Patriots came out strong in the second quarter to take a one-point lead going into halftime.
The game remained tight and came down to the last 7.2 seconds when Weeden called a timeout with the game tied 52-52.
After the timeout, Russell inbounded the ball to the backcourt to sophomore Devonta Brittian. Brittain dribbled up, made the pass to Toomer, who squared up and drove past his defender to make a reverse layup as the buzzer sounded. With the 54-52 win to set the stage to face two-time defending state champion and No. 1 ranked Jonesboro for a spot in the state championship game.
After the regular season, in which Grady compiled a 22-3 record, the team began its journey to state with a 69-44 region tournament win over Marist at home.
The Knights then traveled to Chamblee for the remainder of the tournament to face a familiar opponent, St. Pius, a team that split the season series with the Knights. Grady came out on top, however, with a 59-56 win after trailing by double digits. In the region championship, Grady met Lithonia, another team they split their season series with.
With a 61-58 win over Lithonia after a game-winning, full-court buzzer beater by senior point guard Christian Bryant and a region title under their belt, the team moved on to the state playoffs to face Pickens. High School.
In their first state playoff game, the Knights defeated Pickens 78-44 at home behind a 29-point performance by Russell and a 10 points, 12 assists and 10 steals triple-double by Bryant.
With seven seniors, including four starters, Toomer, Russell, Tykwaan Bryant and Christian Bryant, the underclassmen on the team know what they have to do to have repeated success next season, but will have to make up for losing valuable starters.
“We know what he had to do to get there and best believe we will be back,” said sophomore Jadyn Graham.
Although they didn’t meet their ultimate goal, the boys basketball team can look for sophomore starter Devonta Brittian, juniors Tyronn St. James, Charles Martin III, Kolby Morton and sophomores Graham, Jaelyn Smith and Aaron Burras to lead a state-championship pursuit next year.
