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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

After Russ Gurley’s retirement, the Westminster School at Oak Mountain Knights will have a new leader on the basketball court in the 2024-25 season.

Greg Bradford has taken the helm of the Knights and will lead a younger but experienced group of players that have shown lots of excitement in the buildup to his inaugural campaign at Westminster.

“It’s been fun,” Bradford said. “We got a young group of guys that are eager to play and want to get better so it makes coaching a lot easier so I’m looking forward to the season.”

Depending on the lineup, the Knights retain three to four starters from last year’s squad that failed to get out of the area, losing to Cornerstone Schools of Alabama in the Class 2A, Area 8 semifinals.

This year though, two of the biggest obstacles to the area championship are gone. Thanks to reclassification, Vincent and Altamont both exited the area, and Westminster now shares a four-team Class 2A, Area 9 with Cornerstone, Holy Family Catholic and Alabama Aerospace and Aviation.

Bradford hopes that the Knights can compete with all three of those teams in the area this year as they seek to get to sub-regionals and beyond, and that starts with a big group of returners looking to build off last year’s results.

While Westminster lost three seniors from last year’s team, including a couple of starters, there are no seniors this year. Instead, a 10-man junior class will take the reins.

Bradford tabbed point guard David Sellers as one of those players who will lead with experience alongside Sam Lippard and Thomas Fleming. Expect them to help lead the Knights in the early stretch of the season.

“He’s got the most varsity playing experience of the crew so we’re going to look to him to lead this this bunch,” Bradford said of Sellers. “We’ve got a couple others that have got quite a bit of varsity experience too so someone like Sam Lippard or even Thomas Fleming. We got a big guy in the middle, we’re going to take advantage of his height.”

Overall, Bradford believes that the backcourt will be one of the team’s strengths this year. With multiple guards who got key playing time last season, he expects them to be the foundation that they build the rest of the team on.

“I think we’ve got some pretty decent experience for our guards,” Bradford said. “The three guards that I’ll probably be starting had a lot of varsity minutes last year, so I’m going to lean on them, so hopefully that’ll provide a boost for us as we start.”

In addition to that double-digit junior class, Westminster will have a pair of sophomores who will join them in Canaan Hill and Davis Franklin.

While Bradford hopes to grow the sophomore class as the year progresses and JV players step up, Hill and Franklin will be the first ones tested at the varsity level and have the potential to be breakout players.

“I’m curious to see how they respond to the jump from playing JV last year to varsity this year,” Bradford said of Hill and Franklin. “I know it’s going to be a big learning curve for them, but hopeful given some time, some experience, they’ll be able to contribute to this team.”

Stylistically, Bradford hopes to retain some elements of Gurley’s playstyle while also refining it to find even more success.

Like last year’s team, the Knights aim to be an uptempo team that gets across the court quickly in transition, but Bradford also wants to build up a sound defense while avoiding errors on the offensive end.

“I know coach Gurley was an up-and-down,” Bradford said. “We want to try to be up-and-down, but we want to play really disciplined defense and try to limit our turnovers, value the possession and just really get after it for 32 minutes hopefully.”

Bradford will be joined by a familiar face on the sideline as former head coach Daryle Butler returns as an assistant after nine years away from Westminster, and the two will strive to help their players succeed on and off the court.

While one of the key goals remains to go as deep as possible when area play and the playoffs roll around, Bradford and the coaches strive to strengthen their players as young men and prepare them for life beyond basketball.

Instilling his players with a strong Christian character is something that Bradford not only values, but takes pride and joy in. His hope is that those lessons that he teaches them bear fruit in their lives and on the basketball court this season and beyond.

“We’re a Christian school, and one of the callings for me and my other coaches that are working with me is we love to disciple young men and we just want to be able to do that, disciple young men through sports, so this is a great opportunity to do that, to prepare them on the playground for the battleground,” Bradford said. “That’s kind of what we try to get portrayed to the players, and hopefully that’ll bear itself out throughout the season.”