The Greeneville Greene Devils are playing some of their best basketball at the right time of the year, and they travel to Murfreesboro this week hoping to bring home the program’s third state title.
Greeneville will begin Class 3A State Tournament on Thursday at 11 a.m. on the floor of the Murphy Center on the campus of Middle Tennessee State University against Munford.
“When I look at what we’ve done over the past couple of weeks I feel really good about how we are playing. The Carter game was a close game, but I liked that we had to gut it out at the end. I’m really pleased with where our guys are right now, and I’m looking forward to playing on Thursday,” Greeneville coach Brad Woolsey said.
While Greeneville is returning to the state tournament after a two-year layoff, Munford is making its first state tournament appearance since 1930. The Cougars enter the state tournament with a 21-10 record. They are the District 15-3A champions, the Region 8-3A champions and in the state sectionals they squeaked by Dyersburg 65-63 to make it to Murfreesboro. Like the Greene Devils they are playing some of their best basketball in March.
JaDyn Lee will be the player to watch for the Cougars and the 6’2” senior leads the team in every major statistical category. He is averaging 24.8 points, 9.3 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 2.6 steals per game. Woolsey emphasized that his squad will have to play with urgency on defense, and because Lee passes so well every assignment will require his team’s full attention.
“Lee is a guy that can score from 28 feet, he can penetrate and he can pass. He really does it all. He’s a really nice player. He leads them in every category. Slowing him down is going to be hard, but we need to try take away the situations where he thrives. We have to be good in transition because he likes to get out and go into transition.”
The Greene Devils have their own star player in Mr. Basketball finalist Trey Thompson, and Woolsey expects him to make his presence known in Murfreesboro.
“Trey’s effective field goal percentage is up to about 70 percent, and a lot of that is because of his ability to get down hill and get to the basket,” Woolsey said. “The fact that he can shoot it, he can penetrate, he can score on the block and he can pass it. He’s kind of a Swiss Army Knife. He lets us attack teams in a lot of different ways.”
What can make the Devils dangerous this week is that the cast around Thompson has stepped up in the postseason. That starts with point guard Zaydyn Anderson and seniors Isaac McGill and Jhervius Moore.
Woolsey expects the Cougars to pack it in on defense in a 2-3 zone, and if they do that it could mean guys like Dom Tweed, Cole Franklin, Cole Smith and Yordan Mills will have a chance to show off their three-point prowess.
“They run a 2-3 zone and pack it in a little bit. That will be a little different from what we are used to, but our guys have executed pretty well against zone this year,” Woolsey said. “As a team we are shooting about 35 percent from three, and then with Trey moving around and them not having any one person on him that could be problematic for them. I think we’ll have a chance to shoot them out of the zone, but even if we don’t We have to go get offensive rebounds. Zones can give up rebounds, and we want to get those second shots.”
On the same side of the bracket as Greeneville are Upperman (29-3) and Hume-Fogg (29-3). On the opposite side Tullhoma (30-4) will play Jackson South Side (24-2), and Fayette-Ware (27-5) will play Fulton (18-16) on Thursday in the quarterfinals.
