by Brandon Parker, The Washington Post
washingtonpost.com [excerpt]
I had a chance to catch up with Britt, who has missed Oak Hill’s last 10 games, at last month’s Hoophall Classic in Massachusetts. Here’s what he had to say about his injury, his time at Oak Hill and what he misses most about playing in the D.C. area…
Click here to read the full article.
by Bret Strelow and Stephen Schramm
fayobserver.com [excerpt]
RALEIGH — Sitting in his Statesville home Saturday, watching his inspired son assume a leading role for short-handed N.C. State, Rick Lewis shed tears and cheered enthusiastically with the toughest man he knows. His 82-year-old father. Clennon Lewis was shot in the ear and leg during the Korean War, and he survived a helicopter crash in Vietnam because the aircraft landed in a body of water. He’s had two triple bypass surgeries, the first in 1975, the next 21 years later, and he hasn’t let prostate cancer or several aneurysms defeat him…
Click here to read the full article.
by Ronnie Flores, ESPN.com ESPN.com [excerpt] May 14, 2012 – When you’ve been running the same program for as long as Oak Hill Academy coach Steve Smith — 27 years and counting — you tend to build rituals that become part of maintaining excellence. Every year after the first three practices, Smith writes down what [...]
by Jim Workman, The Register Herald
register-herald.com [excerpt]
February 1, 2012 – Once again, Oak Hill Academy will stroll into the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center for a Big Atlantic Classic contest with its national power reputation intact.
The Warriors come to Beckley undefeated and ranked No. 1 by both ESPN and USA Today.
Oak Hill Academy (Mouth of Wilson, Va.) will take on a challenge from Powerade Fab 50/ESPNHS.com’s No. 40-ranked Arlington Country Day (Jacksonville, Fla.) in a national game scheduled for 7:20 p.m. tonight.
“We always enjoy our games in Beckley,” said Oak Hill Academy coach Steve Smith. “It’s a big game this year. They’re very good and well-coached. We both like to get up and down the floor. It will be an interesting matchup.
“There will be a lot of talent and athleticism on the floor. It will be a quality high school basketball game that the fans should enjoy.”
Click here to read the full article.
by John Varlas, The Commercial Appeal
commercialappeal.com [excerpt]
September 30, 2011 — Oak Hill (Va.) Academy basketball coach Steve Smith has coached NBA all-stars like Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony, so he knows talent when he sees it.
And some of the very best, he said, is right here in Memphis.
Smith was on hand Thursday at the Westin Hotel downtown to help announce Penny Hardaway’s Hoopfest Benefiting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Click here to read the full article.
by Susan Shan, Sports in Review
susanshan.com [excerpt]
December 11, 2010 — 11 years ago, I attended my first Iolani Classic. The championship game that year featured No. 1 Oak Hill (Mouth of Wilson, Va.) vs. No. 2 Dominguez (Compton, Calif.). Oak Hill won in a 54-50 thriller, and Kentucky-bound Cliff Hawkins was named the Most Valuable Player. In addition, I got to interview Tyson Chandler.
Oak Hill head coach Steve Smith said in a phone interview yesterday, “I remember that game. I remember that game well. It was a really good game – close and exciting.”
Over a decade later, not much has changed. Oak Hill is once again No. 1 in both the USA Today and ESPN RISE rankings with an 11-0 record. They have one game left vs. Sumter on Saturday before they leave for Hawaii.
Smith, who has his choice of holiday tournaments, has been bringing the Warriors to Honolulu since 1988 (though not every year).
“The Hawaii tournament has top-notch competition. Semifinals, finals, you can’t find a better game on your schedule all season long. Obviously, being in Honolulu, Hawaii, that’s an attraction. Most of our kids have never been there. I like taking our guys to different places, places they’ve never gone to,” he said.
Click here to read the full article at susanshan.com.
by Charley Rosen, NBA Analyst
foxsports.com [excerpt]
May 4, 2010 — Forget about Boston’s Big Three. Rajon Rondo was the driving force that propelled the Celtics’ thoroughly convincing 104-86 win in the Cavaliers’ corner of the world, and evened their series at one-all…
Still, there’s no question that the Celtics’ leading man and best player is Rondo — 5 for 10, 19 assists, 13 points. For sure, Rondo can sometimes play too fast and try to force the issue, hence his six turnovers. Plus, his jumper continues to be unreliable. But his speed and quickness are explosive, he’s extremely creative when he’s challenged after zipping into the lane, and his court awareness seems to expand game by game…
Click here to read the full article at foxsports.com.
by Ken Tysiac, Staff Writer, The News & Observer
February 24, 2010 – The text message delivered to Nolan Smith’s cell phone two weeks ago didn’t say much, but it was exactly what the Blue Devils’ junior guard needed to hear after Duke’s win at North Carolina.
“Get in the gym,” the late-night text read.
It came from Michael Beasley, Smith’s childhood friend and Miami Heat forward who was the No. 2 pick in the 2008 NBA Draft. Short, direct messages such as Beasley’s have helped spur Smith to overcome the struggles of his sophomore season to become the ACC’s fourth-leading scorer at 17.9 points a game.
Quick-witted with an eager smile, Smith remains close with his childhood teammates from Upper Marlboro, Md., and from his high school days at Oak Hill Academy.
Click here to read the full article at newsobserver.com.
by Steve Aschburner
NBA.com
January 26, 2010 — Three or four players and a few civilians were left in the Milwaukee Bucks’ locker room late Saturday night when the relative quiet was pierced by the sound of someone going all “American Idol” in the shower. Turns out, it was Jerry Stackhouse’s baritone echoing off the tile and down the hall, singing a tune no one instantly recognized but making known his presence that began with Milwaukee just five days earlier.
Bucks guard Jerry Stackhouse is still shaking off the rust after his long NBA layoff. Gary Dineen/NBAE via Getty ImagesEager to fill the void created by shooting guard Michael Redd’s latest season-ending knee injury, seeking to replace some of the scoring and experience that Redd provided, the Bucks reached out to Stackhouse. Never mind that the long-ago North Carolina star had played in just 10 NBA games since the end of 2007-08 and none at all this season in what was looking more like a forced and endless furlough than any official retirement. The Bucks knew Stackhouse — general manager John Hammond had been with him in Detroit, coach Scott Skiles actually played with him for a season in Philadelphia — and felt he had something left in his tank.
Click here to read the full article and interview with Stack at NBA.com.
by Norm Wood, Inside Recruiting
hrvarsity.com
January 24, 2010 — For a guy who thought he’d only be spending about five to eight minutes per game on the floor while wearing the uniform of the nation’s most elite prep boys basketball team, this season has been an eye-opening experience for Keith Hornsby.
As it turns out, he has evolved into much more than just a garbage-time player for Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, a town in southwest Virginia. He’s a legitimate sixth man as a junior. Though he’s still waiting for the bigwigs from programs in the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big East and Southeastern Conference to take notice, he knows he’s at least on the radar map — by osmosis, if nothing else.
“There are such great players on this team, so I just naturally get so much better, and my confidence rises, too,” said Hornsby, who is a former Hampton Roads Academy student and the son of Grammy Award-winning musician and Williamsburg native Bruce Hornsby. “My shots, my driving (to the basket), my ballhandling have all gotten better, but especially my defense. With having to guard these guys, that’s the main thing that’s improved.”
Click here to read the full article at HRVarsity.com.
by Courtzide Seatz, Correspondent
bleacherreport.com
Some prep schools are renowned for academic excellence, feeding universities with bright, well prepared, intellectual students. These institutions are highly respected for their positive influence on their pupils, providing them with the all of the necessary tools to become highly successful adults.
While Oak Hill Academy in Virginia is certainly one of these elite schools and offers a rigorous curriculum, it is more well-known for its boys’ basketball program.
Players with ambitions of being recruited by top-flight college programs often transfer to Oak Hill Academy for their final years of high school in hopes of being discovered. It is renowned for outputting high quality athletes and provides them with the national exposure needed to be discovered by the NCAA’s top programs.
Throughout the years, Oak Hill Academy has seen many notable alumni walk down its halls, and has educated some of the most well known NBA players in the last 20 years.
Click here to read the full column and view the slideshow of bleacherreport.com’s “All-Oak Hill” team.
MitchMash: Diener saw Brandon Jennings show coming
by Mitch Stephens
MaxPreps.com
(excerpt)
I was hyperventilating over Brandon Jennings, of course, and his third-quarter cremation of an entire NBA franchise.
Brandon Jennings averaged more than 38 ppg at Oak Hill Academy.He made 12 consecutive shots and scored 29 points from every spot on the court — driving right-hand spin shots (he’s left-handed), pull-up jumpers from the foul-line, an assortment of 3-point bombs — fadeaways, catch-and-shoots and pull-ups.
The 6-foot-1 rookie point guard for the Bucks did much of the same in the fourth quarter and, despite going scoreless in the first, finished with 55 points, three off the rookie record held by the most dominant player in league history, Wilt Chamberlain. Yes, that Wilt who once averaged 50.4 points per game.
(Read the complete story at MaxPreps.com.)
Foreign correspondence prepped Jennings
by Dan Wetzel
In his first career NBA game, Brandon Jennings of the Milwaukee Bucks scored 17 points, grabbed nine rebounds and handed out nine assists. He was within a couple plays of joining Hall of Famer Oscar Robertson as the only player to ever record a triple-double in t heir NBA debut.
Brandon Jennings nearly became the first player since Oscar Robertson to have a triple-double in his first NBA game.The next night, in leading the Bucks to victory, Jennings led the team in scoring with 24 points.
Prior to last weekend, Jennings had been known as the trailblazing young player who boldly decided to skip college to spend a year in an Italian pro league developing for the NBA.
Now he owns one of the best starts to an NBA career … ever.
(Read the complete story at Yahoo! Sports.)
Hoops Notes: Storied Oak Hill tips season Saturday
by Jason Hickman
The NBA’s 2009-2010 schedule isn’t the only basketball action tipping off this week.
At storied Oak Hill Academy (Mouth of Wilson, Va.) head coach Steve Smith’s Warriors begin their 39-game odyssey that will include contests in nine states Saturday night against Central Carolina Academy.
The Warriors, 40-1 a year ago with a trip to the National High School Invitational finals, have already scrimmaged against Hargrave Military Academy (Chatham, Va.) and Stephen’s Prep (Raleigh, N.C.). Smith is upbeat about what he sees.
“I’m optimistic. We are playing better than I thought we would this early in the year,” Smith said. “We are not as deep, but I feel good about our top six or seven.”
(Read the complete story at MaxPreps.com.)
The Hard Way
Diminutive point guard Jennings has taken a long and winding road to the NBA.
by Gary D’Amato of the Journal Sentinel
After signing his rookie National Basketball Association contract worth nearly $4.5 million with the Milwaukee Bucks, Brandon Jennings could have walked into any dealership showroom in the city and driven away in something that said he’d arrived.
(Read the complete story at Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel.)
