New look, same goal: Guard play makes Campus basketball a state title contender again
This isn’t the same undefeated Campus boys basketball team from last season.
Four starters are gone from that squad, but the Colts have reloaded and are once again looking like state championship contenders — off to a 9-1 start to the season after Tuesday’s thrilling 73-72 victory over Maize.
Reloading is a lot easier when you have perhaps the best player in the state in 6-foot-5 do-everything senior Sterling Chapman, the Tulsa signee who is averaging better than 21 points, 12 rebounds and three assists per game.
Chapman teams with Stevie Strong, a transfer from Kansas City who recently scored 40 points and broke the school record with eight three-pointers in a game, and Jayden Hall, a lightning-quick point guard, to do handle most of the scoring load for Campus. The three senior guards give the Colts a new, but just-as-potent look.
“You’ve got to adapt and play to your strengths and our strengths this season is the shooting that we have,” Campus coach Chris Davis said. “We have confidence in those guys to shoot the basketball and their job is to make them. We’re definitely a different team this season. We don’t have the big rim protector back there anymore, but it’s nice to have the guards that we have. You can win in high school with good guards.”
Chapman might be the single most impactful two-way player in Kansas (he recently set the school record with a 20-rebound game), but him alone would not be enough for Campus to contend for the Class 6A title with Blue Valley Northwest again.
The difference-maker has been the arrival of Strong, a 6-1 guard who knows nothing but how to score. He averaged better than 30 points per game the last two seasons for University Academy, a Class 3 Missouri school in Kansas City.
Chapman and Strong, who didn’t play in Campus’ lone loss this season, have instantly gelled together and formed arguably the state’s most dynamic scoring duo. Few can stop Chapman from plowing his way to the basket and leaving Strong alone on the perimeter is almost a guaranteed three points. Their strengths enhance one another.
“It’s like Batman and Robin,” Chapman said. “If I’m driving the lane and the defense keys in on me, they’re going to forget we have a knockdown shooter. Stevie is just a sharpshooter. The defense better hope that one of us is off because if we aren’t, then it’s going to be a horrible game for you.”
“It’s been a lot of fun playing with an unselfish star like Sterling,” Strong said. “We both want to see each other be successful, so that makes things a lot easier. We’re tight on and off the court. The whole team is tight. We’re like one big family. That’s why things come so easily for us on the court.”
Davis, a long-time high school coach in the Wichita area, says Strong is “as good of a pure shooter that I’ve ever seen at the high school level.” That claim never looked better after last Thursday’s win over Life Prep en route to a Chanute tournament title when Strong made 8 of 11 three-pointers and scored a season-high 40 points.
So how did Strong get so good at shooting?
“When I was young, I used to be quicker than everybody and I used to blow by people,” Strong said. “So people would start backing off, so that motivated me to develop a long-range shot. It began with just taking what the defense gave me. I knew I could blow by everybody, so I adapted and then they had to respect my shot too.”
And when Campus absolutely needs a basket, it can just give the ball to Chapman and let him go to work.
That’s what the Colts did on Tuesday when they trailed Maize by one point with 5.8 seconds remaining and the length of the court to go.
“We knew they weren’t going to want to foul, so we told him to go to the rim,” Davis said. “We’ve got plenty of time. I just told him to avoid the charge and he did.”
Chapman received the in-bounds pass, dribbled the length of the floor, maneuvered around two Maize defenders to get to the rim, then finished through contact of a third defender to score the game-winning basket with 0.4 seconds left. It was the eighth straight win for the Colts.
“I knew they were in the double bonus, so I just said, ‘Give me the ball and I’m getting a foul or I’m getting a bucket,’” Chapman said. “That was a very special moment with my team. I really thought they might have had us.”
While Chapman and Strong do the bulk of the scoring, Campus has remained a title contender thanks to several players excelling in their roles. Hall has blossomed in his senior season and become a double-digit scorer for the Colts. In the Maize win, the trio combined for 53 points, 22 rebounds and 16 assists.
“People are going to look at those two guys, but you can’t forget about Jayden Hall,” Davis said. “He’s been playing as well as anybody the last four or five games. He gets the other team’s best offensive player every night and he plays hard for us on both ends. Those three guards are pretty special to have.”
Junior Aiden Sutter gives Campus another dead-eye shooter, while sophomore Zion Young and freshman Andrell Burton ooze potential. Upperclassmen D’Alessandro Sosa, Chris Martin, Avonte Dixon and Andrew Howard all fill their role well.
After coming agonizingly close to winning the school’s first state championship last spring, the Colts are more motivated than ever to deliver that moment for their school.
“Ever since I moved here, all I’ve heard about is winning state,” Strong said. “Last year it was a big deal about who was really the best team between (Campus) and BV Northwest and this year we want to prove that we’re the best team and we deserve to be state champions.”
This story was originally published January 28, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
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