onthefieldandcourt
20-Win Basketball Season Harkens Back to Past Glory By ADD SEYMOUR JR.
H
eading into the 2012-13 basketball season, He walked on the basketball team as a freshman. Morehouse head coach Grady Brewer ’80 He blossomed to become a two-time All-SIAC knew he had a good team. He just had player and was the conference’s Preseason Player no clue his team would turn out to be great. of the Year this past season. This season, he aver “I knew that I had a little bit more talaged double figures in points per game and was ent that I’ve had over the years,” Brewer said. among the SIAC’s leaders in rebounding and “But to this magnitude, no.” blocked shots. Brewer’s boys bounced back from having only one winning season over the past seven years to being a 20-win team that was ranked among the top teams in the NCAA Division II South Region this season. The Maroon Tigers went nearly two months without losing a game, ripping off a school-record 14 straight wins. The team narrowly missed out on an NCAA Division II Tournament bid after losing to Benedict in the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC) tournament championship, finishing the season with a 20-8 record. It brought back memories of Morehouse basketball teams from 2000 to 2004 and former coach A.J. McAfee’s teams from 1988 to 1990, all winning at least 20 games each year. “It’s all about having a winning attitude,” Brewer said. “This team just fought all the time. They never gave up, even when everybody else thought they would lose a game. They never thought they would lose a game.” The Maroon Tigers were led by the 1-2 punch of senior center Andrae Nelson and junior guard Darrius Williams. Williams, a former two-time All-SIAC defensive back on the Maroon Tiger football team, led the conference in scoring and rebounding and was named the SIAC’s Newcomer of the Year. The kinesiology major was named to the All-SIAC team and All-Tournament team. Junior guard Darrius Williams Nelson, a political science major, wasn’t even recruited to play basketball at Morehouse.
“I can’t say enough about Darrius,” Brewer said. “When I had him in the preseason, I had an idea of playing him at a guard position though he had been more of a forward. That worked out. And when you look in the dictionary and see the term ‘student-athlete,’ Andrae’s picture should be there. He did everything a student-athlete should do in a collegiate program.” Other important players were Shawn Allen, a senior All-SIAC preseason pick who was among the conference’s top 15 in scoring and rebounding; senior Jonathan Tassin; and sophomore Austin Anderson. But what made Brewer proudest was how his entire team came together to focus on defense, rebounding and sharing the basketball. “They have really hung their hats on all of those things, which I call the non-negotiables,” he said. “That’s the surprising thing. But I knew if they did that, we’d have a chance to win every game.” That chance excited Morehouse fans who had been yearning for a winning season. They made Forbes Arena loud and lively again. “We want to thank them for all the support,” Williams said. “It always gives you extra energy.” Nelson added, “I mean, when you have the College’s president sitting behind you on the bench, that’s just an amazing feeling.” Brewer believes his Maroon Tigers did something else important this season: they showed alumni, faculty, students and staff that basketball is still a big deal at Morehouse. “It lets them all know that basketball still lives,” he said. “To win 14 games in a row, lose a couple and then win five in a row, it lets you know that you are doing something right. It lets you know that winning is becoming a part of what we’re doing. The guys bought into all the things we tried to teach them about winning on the court and winning off the court.” n s p r i n g
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