Jack Kline returns to lead young, talented squad
Bucky McMillan said the goal at Mountain Brook isn’t to win a state basketball championship.
“Our goals is to be the hardest-working, hardest-playing team every practice, every day,” the Spartans coach said. “We want to be a very unselfish team. I always tell our players that you don’t have a true team until every single person on the team gives up one thing they want to accomplish that season for the sake of the team.”
The result of that is that the Spartans have won two of the past three state championships with a Class 7A runner-up finish last season to Hoover.
The Spartans will be an interesting mix of veterans and talented youngsters.
Senior Jack Kline is probably the epitome of a Mountain Brook basketball player. A four-year member of the varsity, the UAH commitment might not be the most talented player in the metro area, but no one plays harder or gets more out of his ability. He’s one of five seniors who’ll be called upon to provide leadership for the eight juniors, two sophomores and two freshmen.
“We’ve got a lot of scoring weapons on this team,” Kline said. “I may be one of them, but my main role is to be physical and be a good rebounder.”
One of those scoring options is a freshman, but he’s no ordinary freshman.
Trendon Watford is rated as the top player in the state in his class, and in the top 10 nationally in his class. The younger brother of former Shades Valley and Indiana star Christian Watford, the 6-foot-7 freshman transferred from Shades Valley.
“He is a very skilled player,” McMillan said. “He loves basketball; high, high character. Very coachable, very unselfish. I think his next step is getting tougher and tougher and tougher to be able to withstand playing hard all the time, playing physical all the time.
“He’ll be something I don’t know this state’s ever seen before in terms of someone that size and can handle the ball like a point guard, can pass the ball like a point guard, can post up. Can guard a wing, can guard a five. We’re not putting any pressure on him because he’s going to make a lot of mistakes because he’s a ninth-grader. But he’s going to learn from those mistakes. He’s got the right character to learn from those mistakes.”
McMillan said his team will have growing pains early, but it’s about where the team will be in January and February. The Spartans have a challenging schedule. They were set to play in the Capstone Classic on Nov. 23-25. They will play in the Steel City Invitational at Samford on Dec. 19-22, the Next Level Hoopfest in Nashville on Dec. 28-30, a game in the St. Pius X Georgia Showcase on Jan. 23 and a Border Wars game vs. a team from Tennessee on Jan. 30.
The region is tough, too, with Spain Park, Vestavia Hills and Hewitt-Trussville.
“We want to be a fearless basketball team,” McMillan said. “My challenge to all of our seniors is to be great leaders to these younger guys. That way, by the end of the season, we can develop into not the young and inexperienced basketball team we are now, but a team that’s tough and has one mission.
“If our seniors can show them that, I think we’ll be a pretty good basketball team.”