Flint Elite boys’ basketball coach Greg McMath doesn’t have to do much coaxing to get his team to commit defensively. Senior Razach Spillers, for one, is just wired that way.
“I like to guard the best player every game,” Spillers said. “If I shut down the best player, we usually win. That’s what happened a lot this year.”
For Spillers, that mentality just carries over into basketball season from football season, where he’s an All-State defensive back who plans to play college football after graduating.
“Defense is like my second nature, whether I’m playing football or basketball,” he said.
Spillers isn’t the only player who excels defensively, though. Senior Jeffrey Turner, who recently eclipsed the 1,000 point mark in his career, began his high school career mainly focused on getting stops defensively. His offensive game evolved over time. During an interview earlier in the season, senior De’ion Wright, a guard, also credited the football mentality some of the team’s stars bring from the gridiron with instilling defense and toughness on the court.
A.J. Smith Jr., a sophomore point guard, has regularly put up eye-popping stat lines this season – he even had the first quadruple double in school history in the district championship game. Even with his offensive abilities as a scorer and passer, it is the team’s defense that he points to first as the key to their success.
“We just play hard on defense,” Smith said.
Putting the Pieces Together
If the quotes from players in interviews sound in lockstep, that’s not an accident. Talent aside, the team’s harmony is really what can be credited for the bulk of their success.
“We’ve been a tight knit group,” McMath said. “We’ve just been together the last two years, and that’s produced some really good basketball.”
This season, Flint Elite, which is a co-op program with students from New Standard and Madison academies, has continued to put together an impressive collection of accolades in a short amount of time.
The program is only in its fourth full season. During those last four years, they’ve averaged nearly 18 wins per season, culminating with a 20-4 record this season, back-to-back district and regional titles, and a chance to advance to the Division 3 state semifinals at the Breslin Center for first time in school history if they can beat 24-2 Onsted in the state quarterfinals at 7 p.m. on March 10 at Ypsilanti Lincoln High School.
Last year, the team lost in the quarterfinals to Arts & Technology Academy of Pontiac. They’re hoping that experience prepared them for a better outcome this season.
“They (Onsted) are a really tough team,” McMath said. “They have a tremendous point guard, they’re really athletic. We had a great practice today (March 8), it probably was our best practice of the year. Everybody came in focused and engaged, really talking, really working hard. So, you know, last year (in the quarterfinals) we kind of went through the motions of being shocked that we made it. Now we expect to make it not just this year, but year after year.”
That opportunity – to build a program that can compete for state titles annually – is exactly what brought McMath, who was one of the most successful high school coaches in Michigan at Saginaw Arthur Hill, to the program. During his 15 years in Saginaw, he won nearly 300 games, a state championship, and coached several players who went on to play collegiately and professionally. He sees the same elements in place for sustained success with Flint Elite’s program.
“That’s what I was brought here for,” he said. “I just wanted to come in and build a big time program in Flint. I’m from Saginaw, but I know all about Flint basketball. When I got the job, I just wanted to come here and make sure we built a very successful program with our kids from the inside out, making great student athletes and great young men, and that’s what we have done. I think our freshman went undefeated. JV lost one game, and the middle school team went undefeated. It’s definitely growing.”
Leading by Example
Talent is obviously critical to success in high school basketball. But creating sustainable success over time in a program requires that talented players are also committed to helping those coming up behind them.
Turner became the third player in program history to reach the 1,000 career points mark. But he benefited from waiting his turn and learning the varsity game alongside the two scorers who came before him, Shamar Liggins and Terrence Smith.
“I learned to attack and play hard every play (from Liggins and Smith),” Turner said in an interview earlier this season. “It was my defense when I played with them, scoring came last.”
Each year, the team has lost talented players to graduation, but because those seniors have taken leadership seriously, they’ve been able to replace that production with talented underclassmen excited and prepared to step into bigger roles.
Seniors like Turner, Wright, and Spillers have played alongside younger players this season, hoping to pass on the same lessons they learned from older players when they were starting out on varsity.
“Our senior leadership for sure stands out,” Spillers said. “We got way more seniors this year and we’ve been playing together for a while, so the chemistry is different.”
The team has continuity that will remain next season, though. Smith has started on varsity for two years and has continued to improve. Freshman Kaydin Banks also played consistent minutes this season and could step into a bigger role next season.
The foundations of the team, though, will continue to revolve around defense and unselfishness.
“There’s games I need to take over and be a scorer, but games I have to look to my teammates first,” Smith said.
McMath said that mentality has been consistent this season, and it is also what they have to do if they’re going to advance to the state semifinals.
“We share the ball,” McMath said. “Guys really don’t care who is scoring all the points. Everybody’s playing well, everybody’s playing together. We are playing tough on defense and we rebound even though we’re not a big unit. (To win against Onsted) We just gotta play together, get up and down the floor and just play our basketball Warriors basketball.”
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