By BAKER ELLIS / Sports Editor

COLUMBIANA – Head coach Torry Brown still hasn’t watched the tape from Shelby County’s triple-overtime loss to Central-Tuscaloosa in the sub-regional game that ended the Wildcat’s season in 2014-15. Brown and his Wildcats, ranked in the top-10 of class 5A for the majority of last season, lost back-to-back heartbreakers to Talladega in the 5A Area 8 championship and then to Central-Tuscaloosa in the sub-regional round, by a total of eight points, which ended their promising season earlier than expected. Now Brown is headed into his fifth year at the helm for the Wildcats, and is facing the unenviable yearly task high school coaches face everywhere of replacing production, honing talent and cultivating inexperience.

Shelby County only dressed eight varsity players last year and lost two starters from that group of eight in Justus Martin and Nick Youngblood. Martin and Youngblood not only were the only two ball handlers for the Wildcats last season, but also averaged nearly 26 points, 13 rebounds, 13 assists and seven steals a game between them. They were two of the leaders on the team from an emotional and statistical perspective, and replacing their production and leadership from the team that finished 25-8 last year is priority number one for Shelby County.

“You’d think that, we didn’t dress but eight, we lost two, we got six coming back (that’d we’d be in a good spot),” Brown said during an Oct. 21 interview. “But when you lose two guys that did so much for you, it’s almost as if you lost five or six guys. It’s two holes to fill, but they’re two really big holes to fill.”

Picking up some of that slack will undoubtedly be Brandon Green. Green was the leading scorer on last year’s team with 16.8 points per game, and also contributed 7.2 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 3.3 steals per game as well. He’s a strong, capable slasher with a nose for the rim. He is also just a junior, but has been starting since his freshman season and will have to ramp up his rebounding numbers and defensive intensity with Martin and Youngblood gone.

Quinterrious Montgomery and David Watkins, two seniors, are the other two returning starters, both of whom have started for at least a full season but have experience dating back to their days as sophomores. Watkins is the true big on the team and will once again be tasked with banging down low with some of the top teams in 5A. Montgomery, one of the top pure athletes in the school according to Brown, will be on the perimeter with Green.

Montgomery, Watkins and Green are all headed into their third year with the varsity team and will most likely lead the way from a production standpoint on most nights. Tanner Brooks, Deon Carter and Cole Pate are all headed into their second year as varsity players and will be asked to step into new roles. Brooks, who served as Watkins’ backup a season ago, very well may step into a starting role, giving the Wildcats more size than they had a season ago.

What Brown hopes this group turns into is something of a hybrid of his last two teams. Last season, the Wildcats were going to essentially have four guards on the floor at all times while a season before that, they were bigger and couldn’t play in transition as easily.

“I’m hoping, the hope is, that we can play any different style,” Brown said. “Whether it’s a half-court, grind-it-out kind of game or whether it’s a full-court, up-and-down kind of game. We just have to be versatile enough. We can adjust personnel-wise and guys can make adjustments on the court. If it’s one of those tough, grind-it-out kind of games, then we can be successful or if it’s one of those 65 or 75 (point) kind of games then we can be successful there. That’s the hope, but it’s still up in the air.”

The Wildcats open the season up on Nov. 12 with a home game against Pelham.