High school basketball preview: East Aces (+video)
Schedule
December – 8, Southeast; 11, at Carroll; 15, at West; 18, South; 19, at Northwest.
January – 5, Kapaun; 8, at Heights; 12, North; 14, 15 or 16, TBA at Koch Arena; 21-23, at Dodge City tournament (B); 28-30 at El Dorado tournament (G).
February – 2, at Southeast; 5, Carroll; 9, West; 12, at South; 16, Northwest; 19, at Kapaun; 23, Heights; 25, at North.
Boys
Coach: Joe Jackson, fourth season
Last season: 24-1, won 6A
Top players
Xavier Kelly, 6-6, sr., F
Elijah Kelly, 6-3, jr., G
Michael McKinney, 5-9, jr., G
Mark Hartley, 6-4, sr., F
After winning his first state title last season — and East’s first since 2005 — Jackson has enough talent back to keep the program among the state’s elite. And that’s even after losing a pair of All-Metro guards in Zach Jackson and Samajae Jones.
East’s biggest advantage is in the post, where it returns Xavier Kelly, who is one of the nation’s top football recruits and has signed with top-ranked Clemson. Kelly averaged 11.2 points last season and saved his best for last, with 22 points, 10 rebounds and four blocks against Lawrence in the state championship game. He’s also a two-time All-City League selection.
“Xavier is the centerpiece, everybody knows that and everybody knows about him,” Jackson said. “Even with our great guards we had last year, he still faced double and triple teams in the post at times, and I totally expect him to see that again.”
Which means it will be on a cast of key role players off last season’s team to step into bigger roles. Hartley, senior guard Raymond O’Day, McKinney and Elijah Kelly all came off the bench last season, with Hartley starting five games.
“It’s definitely going to be a different look for us this year,” Jackson said. “We’re not going to tell them they have to fill the shoes of the guys that left, but we’re going to challenge this group to step up and show they weren’t just riding the coattails of those guys form last year. We haven’t done anything to prove ourselves or anything like that.
“This group needs to step up, understand their roles and play to our strengths.”
Girls
Coach: James Cole, eighth season
Last season: 10-11
Top players
Arie Burl, 5-8, sr., G
Mariah McKinney, 5-8, so., G
KayKay Ross, 5-7, so., G
Astrid Same, 5-11, jr., F
It might still be a stretch for East to get into the upper echelon of the City League, but it’s closer than you might think.
That’s because the Aces return almost their entire roster, including four starters.
“It all comes down to figuring out if we can build off last year,” Cole said. “We need to build off what we learned and create some chemistry that maybe we lacked last year with some younger players.”
East was definitely young — five freshmen were in the eight-player rotation. Two of those players made up East’s backcourt — sophomores McKinney and Ross — and will start the season on the sideline while recovering from ACL tears. McKinney, who averaged 7.2 points, 3.9 assists and 2.2 steals, hurt her knee in last season’s regular-season finale and should only miss two games.
Ross, who averaged 6.3 points, hurt her knee in the spring and will be back sometime in January.
“We’ve got enough other returners that I think we’ll be fine,” Cole said. “They’ll fill in nicely until Mariah and KayKay come back, and then we’ll hopefully have some depth that we’ve lacked the last few years.”
Tony Adame
This story was originally published December 1, 2015 at 8:43 AM with the headline "High school basketball preview: East Aces (+video)."