By Robert Wilson
MADISON – For the first time in 44 years, there was a different coach other than Richard Duease leading the Madison-Ridgeland Academy boys basketball team Tuesday night at MRA’s Duease Hall, named after the winningest basketball coach in Mississippi history and Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame member.
Harper Hudnall made his debut after being promoted from assistant coach to head coach when Duease retired after last season.
Even though there was change on the sidelines in the head coaching position, the result was the same as the hundreds of times during the past four decades with Duease.
MRA came away with a victory.
All-American junior center EJ Dampier had 30 points, 22 rebounds and 4 blocked shots and led defending MAIS Overall Tournament champion MRA to a 71-55 victory over Simpson Academy before an estimated 500 fans.
MRA – which has two other returning starters besides Dampier – not only won its first game this season, it also increased its winning streak to 20 games and hasn’t lost to a MAIS team in 28 games. MRA’s only two losses last season were to MHSAA Class 4A state champion Columbus High and Louisiana state champion Zachary. MRA’s last MAIS loss was to Madison St. Joseph in the MAIS Class 6A state tournament at the end of the 2024-2025 season.
Simpson – which has four returning starters and eight of its top 10 players from last year’s 17-10 team – dropped to 2-1 this season.
The 28-year-old Hudnall – who played for Duease and was a part of two Overall championship teams – was named Duease’s successor in March and he has been working toward this day for several months.
The nerves were definitely there all day,” Hudnall said. “Today felt like one of the longest days of my life. I was excited to get the season underway. The boys were more than ready to tip the season off and I was ready to watch them get after it. It feels good to get the first win. I felt a sense of calmness as soon as the buzzer sounded. I thought we started strong tonight. We came out and ran the floor well and jumped to an early lead. I’ve got to do a better job of making sure we keep the intensity high at all times. No lead is a comfortable lead, and I feel like I allowed us to get too relaxed in the second quarter and Simpson went on a strong run. We showed a lot of fight tonight. Simpson hit a lot of tough shots and kept chipping into our lead, but I thought our guys did a great job of getting stops at crucial moments and hitting big shots on the other end to extend the lead late in the game.”
Hudnall’s wife, Carley, and daughter, Elizabeth, his parents, Joey and Neely, and his brother, Hamp, all who live in Madison, and a group of Hudnall’s closest friends from high school and college were in attendance for the historic debut. So was the legendary coach who Hudnall replaced. Duease – who retired after winning 1,888 games, 42 state championships and 16 Overall titles in 51 seasons, the last 44 at MRA – and his wife, Kim, sat on the baseline on the floor close to the MRA bench.
“I thought Coach was going to do this forever,” said Hudnall in a pregame interview with Lee Adams on the Patriot Network. “Stepping in behind him is a cool moment, it’s a heavy moment. I’m excited for it. It’s a blessing. The pressure is definitely there. It is a great opportunity to coach under this type of pressure and the expectations are high with a player like Dampier. I love this group. It would be foolish to get away from what Coach Duease has done. He knows how to win. I hope this team will show a lot of similarities of his teams. We will have a team that works hard and practices hard.”
Dampier and his teammates calmed down Hudnall as they scored 13 of the first 15 points and held the lead the rest of the game. MRA led 21-8 after one quarter, 36-28 at halftime, and 55-42 after three quarters.
Damper had a two-handed dunk a few minutes into the game to set the tone and was dominating all night. He made 14 of 17 shots from the field, including six dunks, had 16 defensive and 6 offensive rebounds, alternated many other shots, and showed off his ball-handling skills in transition, even going behind his back several times. He scored his 30 points in 20 minutes.
Dampier – ranked the No. 3 player in the country in the Class of 2028 by ESPN – tied his career high for rebounds and was four short of tying his career high for points.
His 82.5 percent shooting Tuesday night isn’t a fluke. Dampier shot 69.6 percent from the field, second in the country among the top 200 players in field goals made, according to MaxPreps, last season as a sophomore.
Dampier – the son of former Mississippi State and NBA star Erick Dampier, now an MRA assistant coach – was named the Player of the Year on the Tatum and Wade/Mississippi Scoreboard Metro Jackson team last season.
He won his second goal medal for Team USA Basketball this summer and started all seven games in the 2026 U17 National Team as they went undefeated and won by average of 49 points in the FIBA U17 Men’s World Cup in Turkey.
Dampier has offers from Mississippi State, Southern Miss, Jackson State, Alabama, Kentucky, Texas A&M, Florida State, Purdue, Southern Cal, and San Diego State.
“We got the lead early because we locked in before the game and we told ourselves that we was going to come out and run the score up on them.” Dampier said. “We wanted to make a statement during this game. I was able to play a good game last night because this year my mindset is different. I look at the game differently and I figured out how to play smarter and faster. Being coached by Coach Hud instead of Coach Duease definitely felt different. I’m so used to going to the sideline and talking to Duease or Duease talking to us before the game. That’s something the whole team has to get used to. It is cool that I have known Coach Hud for a long time and I have seen him go up through every level of basketball at MRA. I used to know him before he was coaching and we have both progressed to now, and now we both ready to make a statement.”
Simpson coach Josh McNulty coached Dampier in the MAIS Futures game last season and was impressed with his play Tuesday night.
‘He’s a great player. Every time we’d make a run to cut it to single digits it seemed like he’d get a dunk or an easy basket,” McNulty said. “I thought my guys competed very hard and when we cut to eight points in the fourth quarter, I thought we had a chance to win but we just didn’t make enough shots at clutch moments and they have a guy that is almost impossible to guard at our level. He’s big, physical and he’s improved every single year. In the MAIS, you’re lucky if you have a kid over 6-foot-4 on your front line so it’s just a total mismatch against most schools outside the Jackson area. I thought we made it as tough as we could on him and he had 30 points and 22 rebounds.”
McNulty’s son, 6-4 junior Sly McNulty, drew the tough assignment to try to guard the 6-11 Dampier.
“Sly always plays so tough and physical, I thought he did that again tonight,” McNulty said. “I thought he got fatigued and started pressing a bit on the offensive end and he wasn’t as productive as he typically has been, but when you’re banging with Dampier for 30 minutes, it will take a toll on you offensively.”
Senior guard Toby Smith – son of former All-State standout from Mendenhall and former Mississippi State guard Brad Smith – led Simpson with 24 points. Smith made 4 of 11 shots from 3-point range and had a team-high five steals and three rebounds.
“I thought Toby played outstanding, made some tough shots that our team expects and needs him to make,” McNulty said. “He’s an incredible scorer and playmaker on the offensive end, but I thought he made plays defensively as well tonight. I was super proud of his effort. was proud of all of my guys for the way they competed after starting the game so slowly.”
McNulty had 13 points, a team-high 7 rebounds and 3 steals. Senior point guard Fox Groover had 11 points, a team-high five assists, and 3 steals and 3 rebounds.
