‘These kids are just different’: Wichita basketball team wins 10U AAU world title
A fourth-grade boys basketball team from Wichita brought home a world championship after winning the 10U AAU title in Clarksville, Tenn. this past weekend.
Kansas United 2029 beat teams from South Carolina, Tennessee, Michigan, Louisiana, Texas and New York — many times in dominant fashion — en route to a 25-point average margin of victory and claiming one of youth basketball’s most-prized tournaments. United won 48-37 over the New York Lions in the championship game play Sunday on the floor of Austin Peay University.
The team consists of Evan Askins-Dieterich, Camron Clark, Deaven Carr-Cooper, Jackson Corley, Ethan Geng, Jordan Granados, Xavier Lattimore, James Maze, Amari Parga and MJ Teague. The team is coached by Dee Garland, a former Southeast standout who also recently played for Wichita’s semiprofessional team, the Wizards.
“There’s no team from Wichita that’s ever done what these kids just did, so that’s real special,” Garland said. “To win a world championship at 10 years old is pretty amazing. It speaks volumes to their character and how hard they work.
“These kids don’t even realize the magnitude of what they just did. All they know is they played a team from this place and they got to stay at a hotel and then they played a team from this place and they went out to eat after and then they got a trophy.”
Garland said the majority of the team has been playing together since they were in first grade when Garland took over as coach. The players compete in the fourth-grade division and will be fifth-graders this upcoming school year.
“After I got home from college, I was training a couple of the kids trying to make a few bucks in the summer,” Garland said. “One of the dads was like, ‘Hey, I know some other kids, why don’t you start coaching them?’ So we started working them out at Central Christian Church and put them in a competitive Y league and they went undefeated in that as first-graders. The rest is history.”
After starting out as the Wichita Select, the team joined the Kansas United umbrella last summer. While Kansas United is known more as one of the state’s top girls AAU programs run by Gaylen Soyez in Wichita, Garland said the fit has been a perfect one for his boys team.
The team has compiled a 182-36 (83.5%) record during the last three summers and has been ranked as high as No. 3 in the country for their age division.
“I always preach defense wins championships, not offense,” Garland said. “We all can score, but when you get older you’ve got to be able to defend somebody.
“These kids are just different. They all have a will to win and they play together as a team. They don’t care who scores or who gets the credit, as long as the job gets done and we win. That’s all they care about.”
Away from basketball, Garland affectionately said his players are a bunch of “nerds.”
“I mean, one of my kids’ favorite colors is magenta,” Garland said, laughing. “They like science. They like to read. When we travel, there’s not too many of them playing video games. They’re working in their math books instead. I like that.”
On top of the boys working hard three times a week in practice, Garland said the other key to the team’s success has been the support from parents.
Ultimately, that combination has led to the success that culminated this past weekend with the team’s biggest win.
“The biggest part of this is the parents,” Garland said. “There’s no arguing. There’s no jealousy. Every one of these kids are taken care of by all the parents and every parent wants to see each kid be successful. That’s what makes this team unique. Really youth sports is about the parents. They allow their kids to be coached by me, whether it’s tough love or whatever. And these kids work hard and listen and adapt really well.”
This story was originally published July 12, 2021 at 11:30 AM.
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