West Point’s Coby Sullins, pictured in a game against Cullman on Jan. 9, 2018. The Warriors are seeded second in this year’s Cullman County Tournament. / Photo by Bill Piper
CULLMAN COUNTY – The winter weather that hit Alabama on Tuesday and Wednesday affected just about every organization, business, school and person in Cullman County. High school sports are no exception; several county basketball coaches, and their teams, will have to adjust to the circumstances created by the weather with the County Basketball Tournament fast approaching.
One of those coaches is Holly Pond’s Mitch Morris. Morris’ varsity boys team earned the first seed in the tournament and will also be the host school for this year’s event. The Broncos have been able to play some games and got some practice time in before the cold hit, but will have to adjust on the fly throughout the week.
“We were able to play Monday night which helped as far as getting in the gym,” Morris said. “We had some Sunday practice time and we played Monday. Of course, we weren’t able to do anything (Tuesday); we’re really hoping that we can make it to the gym (Wednesday) afternoon maybe to shoot around some. We do have two games scheduled this week with Fairview on Thursday and Vinemont on Friday if everything holds true with the weather and stuff it should be warm enough for us to be able to handle those. Hopefully today, Tuesday, was the only day that we wouldn’t be able to get in the gym.”
Morris has dealt with winter weather in years past and has seen the cold affect the teams before and during the County Tournament. Morris hasn’t seen it hit directly before the tournament before, but said he is hopeful that the cold will move out before it can negatively impact the games.
“Maybe not right before but several years ago we had some weather similar to this that happened during the county tournament as it was going on,” Morris said. “We had to kind of push some later games and we finished up on the following Monday or something like that, so we’ve had to deal with it from time to time. Hopefully this will be done and gone with by (Wednesday) afternoon or Thursday and we won’t have to redo any games.”
Holly Pond is the host school for this year’s tournament, but Coach Morris doesn’t expect that to be a burden for Bronco parents and volunteers, thanks to how the tournament rotates workers every night.
“We’ve got all our teachers and all our different volunteers that will help us but the way our county has done it for years is that all the schools will rotate a night,” Morris said. “So, it’s not like all the Holly Pond people have to be there every single night. Every school will have a night so its kind of spread out, which we’re in charge of the program; we have a lady that’s doing that, we have to make sure the basketballs are there and all that good stuff, but yeah, being there every night would be a real headache if we had to do that, but we get to share that around. Other than that, being the host is not too bad.”
Just down the road at Fairview High School, Coach Branch Whitlock and his team are gearing up for the County Tournament as well. Whitlock is keeping his team focused on playing one game at a time and sticking to its style of play despite some distractions from the weather and the upcoming tournament.
“You know for my team I don’t think (the winter weather), you know, affects us a whole lot,” Whitlock said. “We get Hanceville first round and we’ve already played them, have seen them play multiple times, so we pretty much know what we’ve got with them. The thing that affects my team, in my mind, is we try to play up-tempo, we try to be the team that’s in the best shape on the floor, rotate multiple guys and obviously based on our team that we have this year we depend a lot on our shooting. So, where it affects us the most is not being able to get in the gym and run up and down the floor and stay conditioned. Not being able to get in the gym and just get shots in, I think that’s really what affects us because it doesn’t really matter who we play, we’re just going to try to do what we do and try to make people match up with us.”
Whitlock isn’t worried about the shake-up in the practice and game schedule affecting his team on the floor, but it will limit the Aggies’ practice time leading up to their first-round game against the Hanceville Bulldogs on Jan.22.
“Whether it’s weather or just having a week off due to scheduling, you know you just kind of deal with it as you go. It’s just something that you kind of deal with,” Whitlock said. “We had expected to play Holly Pond on Tuesday and have multiple days off going into the County Tournament so as far as that goes it’s not going to affect us a whole lot going into the tournament. This weather probably affects me more playing on Thursday than it does going into the tournament. We’ll still have days to prepare; the problem that I run into is where I was going to have Holly Pond and five or six days to prepare for Hanceville and now I’ve got Holly Pond and three of four days to prepare for Hanceville. You know you try to prioritize which one is more important but at the same time you want to try to win every game, so I think going into this tournament that’s kind of the deal as far as that goes this year.”
Lady Aggies Head Coach Mary Hartline is dealing with the same issues and has a plan to keep her team focused and get the players prepared for the County Tournament. Hartline’s team secured the first seed in its bracket, so the Lady Aggies will have a little more prep time than most, but conditioning and rhythm is always a concern when weather delays happen.
“Well it’s always difficult to have these off days and you know conditioning is important at this point in the season and it’s a balance,” Hartline said. “At this point the girls are pretty much in shape but too many days off can get rid of that very, very quickly and plus just being out of school. The girls aren’t on a stable schedule and that can be distracting for sure. This is the same for everybody but the more days we get off the more days we want off,” Hartline joked. “Of course, it definitely creates some problems, but I think the girls are focused, I’m focused, and we’ll get in something at some point over this week and then hopefully it doesn’t affect the County Tournament.”
This is Hartline’s fifth year coaching the Lady Aggies, so this isn’t the first time that brutally cold weather has forced her to adjust the practice and game schedule. She is hopeful that this year’s tournament won’t be impacted like it has been in years past.
“You know two years ago, I guess it was ’15-’16, weather affected the County Tournament to where they actually had to carry it over into the next week,” she said. “That year we only had one or two games the week before area, which is so important to try and get over that County Tournament lull. There’s an emotional high or low afterwards and we had to cancel those because the County Tournament carried over into the next week and that was my biggest concern is the week after the tournament. It definitely creates some problems, but all we can do is work the time we can work and be focused and do our absolute best because everyone is in the same boat.”
Regardless of who you are pulling for to win the upcoming County Tournament, the team that makes the best adjustments to the weather may have an edge on the competition starting Jan. 20.
Tournament Schedule:
2018 Cullman County Basketball Tournament Schedule by cullmansense on Scribd
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