By Robert Wilson
Richard Duease started his 49th season as a high school basketball coach Tuesday night, but he had two important firsts to start this year.
Duease is starting this season as a member of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame – he will be inducted next summer – and he has a son of a former NBA star playing for him for the first time in his successful coaching career, 6-foot-8 eighth grader EJ Dampier, son of former Mississippi State and NBA standout Erick Dampier, who is an assistant coach for Duease.
Duease led his Patriots to a 78-24 victory over Central Hinds Academy at MRA’s Duease Hall in Madison.
Dampier – rated the No. 1 player in the country in the Class of 2028 by Coast to Coast Preps – made his high school debut with 12 points, 9 rebounds and 3 blocked shots.
Duease, who turned 71 Feb. 18, is the second winningest active boys basketball coach in the country and the winningest basketball coach in Mississippi history. He won his 1,802nd game Tuesday (1,209 boys and 592 girls). Duease has won 41 state titles – No. 41 came last year when he won the MAIS Class 6A state championship – and has won 15 Overall Tournament titles (13 boys and two girls, all at MRA), the last one in 2021. This is his 42nd season at MRA.
His latest victory was like so many others in his career, a lopsided win. Playing for the first time in five years without Josh Hubbard – Mississippi’s all-time leading scorer and now a freshman at MSU – MRA jumped out to a 20-4 lead after one quarter. Even without six football players – five who will be in the rotation – MRA wasn’t threatened by Central Hinds and cruised to a 37-14 halftime lead.
Senior point Sam Hailey led MRA with 21 points. Ashton Magee – a 6-6 junior forward and a member of the PriorityOne Bank/Mississippi Scoreboard Metro Jackson Preseason Elite 11 Team – added 18 points. The starters came out midway through the third quarter.
Duease said he is in good health and looking forward to coaching Dampier for five seasons.
“Dampier is young and there will be some growing pains, but he is going to be really good,” Duease said. “He’s different than any young player I’ve ever had. He reminds me of Jaemyn Brakefield (now playing for Ole Miss) when he was in the seventh grade, but Dampier is more skilled, faster, and taller.”
Dampier averaged 20 points and 16 rebounds on MRA’s seventh grade team last season coached by his dad.
“We are missing six football players, five who will be in the rotation. Jas Smith is a starter who had a great summer but turned his ankle and is out tonight.”
Duease stopped short of predicting his 16th overall title this season, but said this team has a lot of potential.
“I really like this team,” Duease said. “We have only two seniors (starting guards Sam Hailey and Matthew Latham) and we are young, but we are good. We might not show it until late January, but I believe we will continue to get better and peak at the right time.”
MRA is once again playing a good schedule to get them ready for the MAIS Class 6A league play and the playoffs.
“We are playing a tough schedule, with talented teams like (MHSAA Class 7A powerhouses) Gulfport and Starkville and we are playing in the Sunkist tournament in Lafayette (during the Christmas holidays), which has the No. 1 ranked team in Louisiana (former LSU and NBA star Randy Livingston coaches Newman High where Peyton, Eli and Arch Manning played). They will probably be in our bracket.”
MRA’s next game is against Copiah Academy Thursday at 7:45 p.m. at MRA.
