ALL-ALBANY BOYS Basketball: Kirven Davis, Kemari Leverette earn top spots

ALBANY — The boy’s basketball season was about as good as you could get this year. Yes, it would have been better if the Lee County Trojans had found a way to win — but nobody expected them to get to the finals — so that IS a major win. Yes, the Westover Patriots might have won the state title if they had played a better game against the eventual state champion Pace Academy. Westover was THAT good. Dougherty coulda, shoulda, woulda have been in the final four as well and Monroe had a great season — just didn’t get as far as the last couple of years. And Deerfield-Windsor, with a new coach and just two seniors with experience for almost the entire season — and to the Elite Eight — that team came a LONG way from where it began.

How good could Lee County have been if Harrison Skinner didn’t play with a torn ACL for most of the season? What if Traevion Wheeler had been with the Westover Patriots the entire season and the team had not lost Jeremiah Waters? How good could the Deerfield-Windsor Knights have been if Thomas Ray had to wait until the post-season to be able to play significantly?

Selecting the best players from this talented group of young men and coaches is challenging, to say the least. Albany has so, so many talented basketball players. You could argue the starting five at Dougherty or Lee County were the best. Westover could make the same argument. The struggle is real but having been at many Albany games this season, the Albany Herald acknowledges these outstanding performances:

As with the players, the coaches in Albany are incredible, and choosing just one is challenging as well. However, Coach Kirven Davis had no real superstar player. What he did have were nine or ten guys that loved to play and were all really good basketball players. Davis was able to make that work for him and the team. Instead of worrying about who was scoring the points, he focused on the defense and built that team as a unit. And that took those really good basketball players to a state championship game. They didn’t win because Alexander had really good players too.

Coach of the Year: Kirven Davis, Lee County, state runner-up, 28-4;

Player of the Year: Kemari Leverette, Westover

Offensive Player of the Year: Jai’on Burns, Dougherty

Defensive Player of the Year: Christian Brown. Lee County

First Team — All-Albany

Justin Burns, Monroe

Ousmane Kromah — Lee County

DJ Taylor — Lee County

Jackson Harris — Deerfield-Windsor

Kavon Johnson — Westover

Jacob Stallworth — Dougherty

Markelle Jones — Dougherty

Second Team — All-Albany

Andrico Jackson — Monroe

Anthony Milton — Westover

Owen Henshaw — Sherwood Christian

Traevion Wheeler — Westover

Josiah Parker — Lee County

Maurice Davis — Dougherty

Jaylen Seymore — Byne Christian School

Honorable Mention: Kaleke Singletary-Jinks — Dougherty, Juwuan Jinks — Dougherty, Caden King-Lee County, Harrison Skinner-Lee County, Hays Revell — Deerfield-Windsor, Tracy Williams — Westover, Lorenzo Still — Monroe, Jaquan Maddox — Monroe, Alex Harris — Sherwood Christian.

Joe WhitfieldJoe Whitfield