In only its fourth season playing a varsity schedule, Miller Grove basketball is on top of the state, though the man who started it all was not allowed to participate. The Wolverines handily defeated their Region 6 rival Tucker 59-31 on Friday at the Arena at Gwinnett Center to win the Class 4A State Championship, the first state championship in school history. “Coach Sharman White, great coach, my mentor, unfortunately he had to sit out a year, he trusted me in this situation. He groomed me to be in this position,” said acting Miller Grove head coach Eddie Johnson.
“From Day 1 he told me, ‘I’m grooming you for greatness, one day you’re going to have to take this spot.’ Unfortunately the situation happened the way it happened, but he still put me in this position to make sure we got to this point right here. It’s all for Coach White.”
The entire Wolverine team rushed over to White, who was seated in the stands at the end of the right baseline directly across from the Miller Grove bench. White, who is serving a one-year suspension due to a rule violation that occurred while he was at Carver High School in Atlanta, started the Wolverine program that is already state champion. “Winning the state championship in four years, that’s one of the greatest accomplishments I have ever seen,” Johnson said.
While four years had to go by to get to this point and time, four quarters did not have to go by before the Wolverines knew they were going be state champs. Miller Grove led 18-2 at the end of the first quarter and eventually pushed the score to 20-2. The Wolverines held Tucker without a field goal in the first quarter and the Tigers only made two in the first half and six in the game. “I told the boys in the locker room that we wanted our defense to be our offense. We were going to score off of our defensive presses and zone, that’s exactly what happened,” Johnson said.
“We preach defense, so we had to give it everything we got. We had to lay it on the line,” said Miller Grove point guard Mfon Udofia.
Udofia is apart of a group of seniors that have seen the Wolverines go from unknown to champions in their high school career. “Since our freshman year, I’ve been waiting for this moment and I finally got it,” he said.
“That leadership is going to be missed, but he left his legacy on the floor,” Johnson said of the Georgia Tech-bound Udofia. “He influenced everybody else and he’s been teaching everybody else.”
Johnson said that the legacy and leadership of all of his seniors, such as Stephen Hill and Joe Caldwell, will not be forgotten. “[It’s] the best coachable team I’ve been around,” he said. “You tell them to jump through a wall, they’ll go right through that wall. They’re loyal to the program, loyal to their coaches and willing to do any and everything to win the game.”
Udofia led Miller Grove with 12 points, while Hill added eight. Tucker’s Manny Atkins had a game-high 16 points and Brandon Dawson finished with 11 as only four Tigers scored. “Shots weren’t falling because they play good defense,” said Tucker head coach James Hartry.
Nevertheless, Hartry was pleased with where his team got as well as happy to be a part of the high school career of Atkins, who will play collegiately at Virginia Tech. “We’re talking about a student-athlete,” Hartry said. “We’re not just talking about a kid that plays basketball. He’s everything you want in a student-athlete and he’s like a son to me.”
As for the Wolverines, they will have to replace eight seniors, but Johnson is looking forward to normalcy returning. “My plan for next season is to still sit back and let Coach White take the reigns and I’m going to sit and learn behind him,” Johnson said. “He put me in this spot because he knew I could handle it. We handled it. I think I’ve sill got a little bit more to learn, but when it’s my time I’ll step up.”
The win was Miller Grove’s third time beating Tucker this season.
Butler can be reached at jbutler@scoreatl.com.
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