Future looks bright for Sallisaw basketball

After the 2023-24 basketball seasons came to an end for the Sallisaw Black Diamonds and Lady Diamonds in last weekend’s Class 4A Regional Tournament, both Sallisaw coaches had a chance to think about next season.

Sallisaw Black Diamonds coach Chadd Gehrke said if the last two games of the Class 4A Regional Tournament, which were split by the Black Diamonds (1015), are any indication, the future is indeed bright.

“Those last two (regional) games were encouraging going into next year only because we got Tae (Muskrat-Flynn) and Brodie (Cameron) playing, and see what we were capable of,” Gehrke said. “Having Tae and Brodie, and what we’re capable of, just fighting back there, I think that’s just encouraging going into next year.”

Why Gehrke believes that is how the Black Diamonds came back to beat Poteau in Thursday’s regional consolation quarterfinal and almost beat Wagoner in Friday afternoon’s regional consolation semifinal.

“When we were playing Poteau, we were down 68-60 with 3:30 left, and we came back and won. Against Wagoner, we were down 15, and we came back — but we lost by three points. Getting down by eight (points) with three minutes left, we would have just folded up — and let’s say, ‘The season is over.’ We fought back against Poteau and Wagoner.”

Thanks to seeing players like Muskrat-Flynn and Cameron makes Gehrke know that next season’s team will have depth.

“If you have four or five kids who are good, there’s really no one in practice to push them, so they get kind of complacent,” he said. “This year, going into those playoff games, I had probably 10 kids I could have thrown in at any point in time. That pushes everyone to not be complacent. Throughout the year, it will help us grow and get better.”

The Black Diamonds have steadily improved season after season, but Gehrke said next year is time for hitting the next benchmark — at least a .500 record.

“This is our third straight year of winning 10 games. In my first year, we won nine,” he said. “I guess we’ve been steady. Now, we’re ready to take that next step. Only losing one senior (Max Stump), this team next year will be able to take that next step. We haven’t gotten to .500 (to end a season), but I think next year can get to .500 — and keep going past that.”

For the Lady Diamonds (8-16), first-year coach Eric Carr was hoping for more success, but he can tell it’s right there waiting to break through.

“I feel like the kids played hard for the most part this year,” Carr said. “There were a lot of positives in that, but playing hard doesn’t win basketball games. We have to be better basketball players. It’s something we have to focus on coming back as basketball players. We (players) have to understand the game of basketball better. We have to be more skilled. If they’ll put the time in, we have the right kids to be able to make that happen — but they’re going to have to put some time into it, and do it on their own, and really decide that they want to be better, make changes and make it different next year.”

The majority of the team will be back as the Black Diamonds just lose one senior — Abby Kate Qualls. However, those returning must do what’s necessary to make themselves better.

“We have a lot of young kids,” Carr said. “We’re going to have to grow and get better. We’re going to have to put in the time to make it different than it was this year.”

• • •

Then, there were four.

We have four teams left playing in the postseason — Class 4A’s Muldrow Lady Bulldogs, Class 3A’s Roland Running Rangers and Lady Rangers and Class 2A’s Central Tigers.

The Lady Rangers and the Tigers are just a win away from state. That one win for them can happen Friday night in their respective area finals, but a loss will make either or both of them drop to the area consolation finals on Saturday night with a win also sending them to state.

The Lady Bulldogs and the Running Rangers will have to do things the hard way — win three games in three days to make state.

We’ll have complete area tournament coverage in next Wednesday’s edition of Your TIMES.

• • •

For as many playoff games as we had Thursday through Saturday, we only had two Sallisaw Black Diamonds hit or eclipse the 20-point mark last week.

Sallisaw’s Brodie Cameron scorched the nets for 25 points in Thursday afternoon’s Class 4A Regional Tournament consolation quarterfinal win over Poteau.

Then on Friday, Tae Muskrat-Flynn hit for an even 20 points in Sallisaw’s regional consolation semifinals loss to Wagoner.

• • •

We had no double-doubles or triple-doubles reported during last week’s games.

If you coaches will make me aware of any such performances by your players, I’ll give them special recognition as well as the 20-plus individual scorers each week.

David Seeley is sports editor for Your TIMES. He can be reached by telephone at (918) 775-4433, Ext. 139 or by email at davids@cookson.news.