National powers Oak Hill, Hargrave collide in Pulaski

By Cody Dalton
sports@southwesttimes.com

This Wednesday, basketball royalty will touch down in Pulaski when nationally ranked Oak Hill Academy will face off against Hargrave Military Academy in a scrimmage at Pulaski County High School gym at 7 p.m. Admission is $5.

This is the second straight season that the two teams have faced off against one another in Dublin. Last season, Hargrave would go up 53-37 in the first half before taking a 99-73 win over Oak Hill.

“Oak Hill and Hargrave are pretty well known programs,” said Cougars coach Jeff McCulloch. “If you look at Hargrave’s roster, they have some pretty talented kids there and they had some really talented kids last year. Of course, Oak Hill is known nationally. As far as a brand name for basketball, especially at a high school level, it doesn’t get much bigger. Everybody on the east coast knows who Oak Hill is. They travel all over the country.”

“It’s a great game,” said Hargrave coach Kevin Keatts. “If I wasn’t the coach at Hargrave, I’d still want to come and watch the game. At any time in the game, you are going to have 10 division one guys on the court. If you blink, you are going to miss something special.”

After playing for many years at both team’s opposing sites, Hargrave and Oak Hill Academy decided to find a neutral site that didn’t have either team returning to their school at the midnight hour. It was a relationship between former Cougars coach Mark Hanks and the two coaches that led to the game being held in Dublin.

“Coach Keatts and I both know Coach [Mark] Hanks,” said Oak Hill coach Steve Smith. “It’s a midpoint between both of our schools. It is about an hour and 20 minutes from us and about over an hour for them too. For 15 years, we would alternate the scrimmage between Hargrave and here. Two years ago, we played in Lynchburg and that was just too far for us to travel. Last year, we played at Pulaski and it seemed like a pretty good atmosphere for a scrimmage.”

“I’ve known Coach Hanks for a while and obviously he has done a great job with the Pulaski program,” Keatts said. “I’ve known him from my days at Marshall, when I was an assistant coach there. We chose Pulaski because it is a good basketball area and the people obviously love your basketball, but it was also a halfway point between us and Oak Hill.”

For those who are the casual fan and don’t know much about them, Oak Hill Academy is considered one of the most premiere prep schools in the east coast and the country. They’ve recently produced two #2 overall picks in the NBA in Michael Beasley and Kevin Durant, as well as NBA notables Carmello Anthony, Rajon Rondo, and Josh Smith.
Overall, the prep school has won seven National Championships – 1993, 1994, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2005, and 2007 – and been runner-up six times – 1990, 1992, 2000, 2002, 2006, and 2009. Last season’s runner-up team finished an amazing 41-1 and earned Warriors coach Steve Smith the prestigious Naismith National Coach of the Year honor for just the first time. He has a 758-45 winning record as coach.
While Oak Hill looks to compete for National Championships and create future college and NBA talent, Hargrave focuses on those things, but looks to aid young men who struggled academically in high school. The extra year of school helps to improve their grades and does not take away a year of college eligibility.

“I think we have one of the best programs in the county,” said Hargrave coach Kevin Keatts. “This program prepares you for life, prepares you academics in college, and prepares you for basketball. We took post graduates and put them in a private environment with small class sizes. We give them a little discipline in their life. From a basketball standpoint, we prepare them so that whatever program they go to, they will be able to be a starter and contributor right away.”

Hargrave has seen their success in the NBA and College level as well. David West of the New Orleans Hornets and Josh Howard of the Dallas Mavericks are two of the four players who both played for Hargrave and are currently in the NBA. Three players from the program have been named McDonalds All-Americans.

Some of the talent that fans from around the region will see is very impressive to say the least. Among those to look for on Oak Hill’s team is Roscoe Smith, a 6’8” forward. Smith is ranked #16 by ESPNU overall and fourth at his position. He has yet to decide on a school, but he has interested from many elite college programs, including Duke, UConn, Georgetown, Kansas, and Florida.

On the Hargrave side of things, one of the players to keep an eye on will be Shawn Kemp Jr., who is the son of former NBA and Supersonics great Shawn Kemp. Kemp Jr. is 6’9”, 215 lbs and plays the post position just like his father used to.

Also playing for the Cadets is Dominique Ferguson, who will play right beside Kemp Jr. in the paint. The 6’9” post player is committed to playing for Florida International after his finishes his time at Hargrave. Ferguson is ranked #62 out of the Top 100 in the class of 2010 and played at the same high school as #1 overall NBA pick Greg Oden.

Cougars coach Jeff McCulloch stressed the many reasons and importance of bringing a game of this magnitude to Pulaski County and the high school in particular.

“I think it is great exposure and brings some attention to our high school,” McCulloch said. “It’s good for our kids, the basketball kids especially, to come out and watch some high level players play. We host it in order to try and raise some money for the program. Things like shoes aren’t cheap, so we are trying to build the program some too. I think the exposure that it brings to our program is the most important thing out of all of this.”

Both Keatts and Smith are both very optimistic that because these games are going so well between Oak Hill and Hargrave, that they will continue to become a staple in Pulaski between the two schools for many years to come.

“It went pretty well last year, so we are hoping that it goes well again,” Smith said. “Hopefully this can be an annual thing if they want to do it as well.”

“I think it certainly can happen again,” Keatts said. “After every year, we re-evaluate the system and situations. We decide whether we want to go somewhere else or keep the game where it is. After the game there last year, we decided we wanted to bring it back to Pulaski. We will do the same thing after this year’s game. We will decide if want to come back to Pulaski if they’ll have us or we’ll decide to go somewhere else.”

(10-21-09)