Buccaneer ball

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Olympia of Orlando and top-ranked teams from Georgia and Virginia.

“The gauntlet schedule is something I’m going to do every year,” Giddens said. “We are going to continue to play those kind of teams to get us ready.”

Mainland advanced to the final with a 43-38 victory over St. Petersburg in a semifinal game March 2 in Lakeland.

After taking the District 4-5A title in a 73-52 victory over Menendez, the Bucs cracked a 25-year dry spell by winning the Region 1 final in a nail-biting 35-34 win against Columbia, sending them to the state semifinals. Kirk scored 18 points in the semifinal victory.

“When we won to go to the final four, I was very emotional,” Gid dens said. “My players came to hug me and said ‘Coach, you all right? We got you.’ To go with them to the final four and enjoy that moment is the best.”

Giddens believes this could be one of his best defensive teams.

The players’ focus and ability to make adjustments on the fly shows their basketball intelligence is extremely high, he said. One of the most positive aspects of this team is it always look toward the next play and does not dwell on mistakes.

“What I love about this team is that they love each other,” Gid dens said. “At times when something bad happens, they go to their teammate to let them know we got it.”

The Bucs were given time off after the defeat, but Gid dens got a text on Monday, March 6, from his guys say ing they wanted to get back in the gym. They stayed in the gym until 8:30 p.m., lifting weights and shoot ing baskets.

“I think my guys really learned from it,” he said. “That right there tells me they really want it. They got a chance to get their feet wet and they want to go back.”

This is the first year that Mainland has had a football team and bas ketball team bring home state runners-up titles in the same year, and the first year the girls basketball team became state champions. Giddens knows it has a lot to do with their creed — “Buc Pride Never Dies.”

“Oh man, that’s what I believe,” Giddens said. “When I was in high school, that’s all I knew. When I was a kid, I always wanted to play for Mainland. I wanted to break my uncle’s record at Mainland. It’s just something I always wanted to do.”