By Robert Wilson
The first state championship for Richard Duease – Mississippi’s winningest high school basketball coach – came in 1980 when Melanie Coleman, Monica Soldevilla and Grace Presley led the Clarksdale Lee Academy girls to the MPSA Class AAA state title, Duease’s fifth year as a head coach.
Duease’s last and 42nd state championship came Saturday night when 6-foot-10 sophomore center EJ Dampier had 20 points and senior guard Will Bizot had 15 points to lead the Madison-Ridgeland Academy boys to a 70-45 victory over Jackson Prep for the MAIS Class 4A, Division I title before an estimated 1,200 at Jackson Prep’s gym in Flowood.
Duease – the second winningest active boys basketball coach in the country and a member of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame – is retiring after 51 seasons as a head coach, the last 44 at MRA.
The Indianola High, Mississippi Delta Community College and Mississippi State graduate has 1,884 victories (1,292 boys and 592 girls) with 725 losses, a 72.1 winning percentage, with those 42 state championships and 15 MAIS Overall Tournament titles (13 boys and two girls) in his career. He has won 1,244 boys and 439 girls games at MRA.
MRA – ranked No. 2 in Mississippi and No. 1 among MAIS Class 4A teams by MaxPreps – improved to 32-2, won its 15th game in a row and meets Class 3A, Division II champion Rossville Christian, Tenn., Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. in a first round game of the Overall Tournament at Mississippi College in Clinton.
MRA’s only two losses are to MHSAA Class 5A Columbus High, ranked No. 5 in Mississippi, and Zachary High, the No. 1 rated team in Louisiana by MaxPreps.
Defending MAIS Overall champion Prep – ranked No. 36 in Mississippi and No. 5 in MAIS Class 4A – dropped to 20-14 and meets Class 2A, Division I runner-up Lamar Christian Thursday at 12:30 p.m. in a first round game in Overall. Prep has won 16 of its last 21 games.
MRA is 4-0 now against Prep this season, sweeping the two-game regular season series, 64-34 Dec. 11 at Prep and 67-52 Jan. 23 at MRA, and winning 71-41 last week for the South Class 4A state title to go along with Saturday’s result.
Duease had warned his players after Wednesday’s semifinal win over Magnolia Heights not to take Prep lightly and gave them a history lesson. He told them about his first Overall championship team at MRA in 1993. MRA had beaten Prep three times that season and were playing Prep in the state championship game at Prep. Prep, led by Whit Hughes and David Rula, beat MRA for the state title.
MRA got off to a good start in the fourth meeting Saturday and took control of the game in the second half. MRA led 14-11 after one quarter, 30-20 at halftime and 53-32 after three quarters.
“We got off to a good start once again, but Prep matched our intensity and stayed with us for a while,” Duease said. “We were up by 10 at halftime. We were trying too many 3s in the first half instead of going through Damp. Once the guys got the ball to Damp on most every possession, we had success. He would either score, or pitch it to the cutter or back out. It’s always good to get the ball on each possession to someone like Damp. It’s a good formula. It opens things for you. We got on a roll in the second half and got up by 25 or 30.”
Dampier – a member of the Team USA 16-under team, the No. 3 ranked player in the country in the Class of 2028 by ESPN, and the son of former Mississippi State and NBA star Erick Dampier, now an assistant coach at MRA – not only had 20 points (9 of 11 from the field), 14 points in the second half, but he also had 14 rebounds and 3 blocked shots. Bizot – son of Mississippi College athletic director Kenny Bizot – not only had 15 points (7 of 14 from the field), but he also had 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals.
MRA has made quite an improvement since last year when they finished 17-13, the first time in 41 seasons Duease hadn’t won 20 games and was eliminated by Madison St. Joseph by one point in the first round of the Class 6A playoffs, a rare early exit for the legendary coach, known for his long playoff runs.
“We decided to go back to like we practiced years ago, making it tougher on the players,’ said Duease about his team’s improvement from last season. “We made it more competitive. Competition is healthy. Our guys thrive on that. Whether it be a shooting drill, one on one, two or two, or whenever a goal had to be met and the loser runs. We added it to the practice schedule. We’ve had some really hard practices. It tell them it’s’ not personal, its business. I’m trying to make them better. I also think our seniors (Bizot and guard Evan Carr) have done a really good job of leading our team. They are strong leaders. They held our team together.”
“We were very disappointed last year losing to the first round of state,” said Bizot, who is one of the few athletes at MRA who plays football, basketball and baseball. “We all made a commitment to make sure that was not going to happen this year. When the team heard this would be Coach Duease’s last year it gave us extra motivation to have a great year for him. This year is different because our team is year older and we are very close. Evan and I, being the only seniors, knew how important it would be to come together as a team to put ourselves in the best position to have success – not only for our last season, but Coach Duease’s, too. Winning state for MRA and Coach Duease my senior year means a lot for me. It was one of our goals, and I am so proud we were able to do it. Coach Duease is a legend and having the opportunity to play for him has been a blessing. To win a state championship for him in his last year was important to our team and we are so happy we were able to do it. We are looking forward to Overall and keeping this dream season alive.”
It has paid off and now MRA and Duease are four victories away from an Overall championship and great win to his outstanding coaching career.
But MRA will be without one of its starters for the Overall. Senior guard Evan Carr suffered a broken jaw in the third quarter against Prep and is scheduled to have surgery Monday morning and is expected to be out for six weeks, Duease said. Carr averaged about 10 points per game and had eight points before being injured in the third quarter.
“Evan had really improved since last season,” Duease said. “He played football this year and it really toughened him up. Once we got to basketball, he was more aggressive and played well for us, especially on the defensive end. We have been very fortunate this year with injuries, but we will miss Evan.”
Winning the Overall in Duease’s final season won’t easy, he said.
“We’ve got a tough matchup from the start with Rossville,” Duease said. “They are athletic and have a nice team. They’ve been good in the past and done well at Overall. This is one of the toughest Overall we’ve ever had. They are a lot of good matchups. We’ve got to be a lot of good teams just to make it to the finals. Rossville, West Memphis, Magnolia Heights and Hartfield are all on our side of the bracket. And on the other side is Jackson Academy, Prep, Madison St. Joe, Leake and Heritage. It’s no cakewalk for sure.”
Prep junior guards Cray Luckett and Ejay Napier each had a team-high 18 points. Luckett became the school’s single season leader in 3-pointers. He made four 3-pointers Saturday to give him 97 on the season. He was tied with Ben Segrest, who made 93 during the 2023-24 season. Junior guard Asher Reynolds had a team-high 10 rebounds.
“We are extremely proud of our guys,” said Prep coach Zach Allison, who was an assistant under Tim Wise at Prep for three seasons and head coach at Heritage Academy for one season before coming back to Prep as head coach four years ago after Wise went home to Memphis. “They put up a fight against a really talented team. We certainly didn’t play a perfect game, but our guys competed on both ends of the floor. We are looking forward to make a run in the Overall Tournament. Coach Duease has his team playing great basketball behind a Top 5 player in the state in Dampier. Congratulations to Coach Duease and his team on winning the 4A state championship.”
“I thought we did a good job being ready to play after the win over St. Joe (in Wednesday’s semifinals),” Luckett said. “We were locked in the first half, but didn’t take care of the ball in the third quarter that led to some easy shots. Give MRA credit. They put a lot of pressure on us defensively. Our team will turn the page and be ready next week. We hope together another shot.”
