North Augusta, Bluffton Top Teams To Beat In AAAA Boys’ basketball

HSSR AAAA Boys Basketball Rankings - (As of Feb., 5 2025)

1.North Augusta

2.Bluffton

3.Lancaster

4.Crestwood

5.Wren

6.Westside

7. Brookland-Cayce

8.Gray Collegiate

9. Wilson

10. Travelers Rest

By Billy G. Baker

Publisher

Moncks Corner—The AAAA boys’ basketball state basketball finals are scheduled for 4 p.m. on Friday March, 7 inside the Florence Civic Center and there are many talented teams hoping to make it to the gold medal round.

The top ranked North Augusta boys are head coached by Tony Harrell. They are getting double digit points from the trio of 6-5 center Frank Costello, 6-4 power forward Daron Dunbar, and 6-4 forward Quh’mareon Webb to name just a few reasons the Jackets are 20-1 nearing the end of the regular season.

One emerging team is Crestwood, ranked 4^th in the HSSR latest ranking.

The Crestwood High School boys’ basketball team has clinched the No. 1 seed from Region 5-AAAA. That means the Knights will have home games for the first three rounds of the state playoffs.

    Now it’s just a matter of getting to play those games and hopefully getting to play two games at Florence Center – the lower state title game and the state championship game.

    “The way we’re playing, it’s one game at a time,” said CHS head coach Aric Samuel, whose team took a 19-2 overall record and a 10-0 region mark into the final week of the regular season. “They’ve kind of played in the middle this season. It’s hard to say they’ve played below expectation because this team is 19-2. But there are certainly some things they’ve got to improve upon, to get better at.”

    Crestwood, which is ranked fourth in the High School Sports Report AAAA boys’ poll, played for the AAA state title in 2023 and reached the quarterfinals last season. The Knights returned three starters from that team in seniors Shannon Davis, Teon Tindal and Xzavier Johnson.

    The 6-foot-8-inch Tindal and Davis were picked as part of the Top 5 Seniors in AAAA by the South Carolina Basketball Coaches Association in the preseason. Davis leads CHS in scoring at 18.2 points per game, assists at 3.5 and steals at 2.8. He is also averaging 4.9 rebounds.

    Tindal is just missing out on averaging a double-double. He is scoring at an 11.2 clip and pulling down a team high 9.8 rebounds. He also leads in blocked shots at 1.6.

    Johnson is averaging 13.1 points and 2.5 steals.

    The other starters are Jaheim Jones and Riley Durant, both of whom are 6-4. Durant is averaging 6.6 points and 4.7 rebounds, while Jones is averaging 4.9 points and 6.8 rebounds.

    Anton Bennett (2.7 ppg, 3.4 rpg), Sheldon Davis (2.7 ppg), Jaden Shaw (2.6 ppg), Billy Burgess (2.6 ppg) and Jeremie Richardson (2.1 ppg) all see significant minutes as Samuel likes to keep defensive pressure on the opposition. However, Samuel has had some issues with the Knights’ defensive play.

    “We’ve got to work on our defensive scheme because it wasn’t there (in a 63-55 win over Wilson on January 31),” he said. “The pressure defense people are used to seeing us run wasn’t there, and our secondary break wasn’t there.”

Gray Collegiate is a vastly improved team currently holding down the number 8 HSSR ranking. 

The Gray Collegiate team (15-7, 10-2) lost to No. 7 Brookland-Cayce and to number one North Augusta early in region play, but beat both teams recently.

The War Eagles got past North Augusta 55-51 Jan. 28, then followed up by a convincing 74-63 win at Brookland-Cayce Jan. 31.

Junior Levi Ball had 16 points, senior Quan McDuffie had 13 points and sophomore Hunter McGraw had 11 points against the Yellow Jackets. Ball led the way against the Bearcats three days later with 28 points. McDuffie had 17 points and senior L.J. Britt had 11.

“Levi Ball is starting to come out of his shell,” head coach Carlos Powell, also a former USC standout, said. “The guy that I knew and knew who he could be is starting to show you guys who he really is. The last game (North Augusta) was his coming out party. His focus and his attention to detail, his will, and his work are starting to show.”

Ball’s coming out provides another solid scoring option for the War Eagles, who now have four players who average double figures in scoring. Ball averages 13.8 points and 8.2 rebounds per game. Britt averages 10.6 points and McDuffie averages 10.5 points. McGraw averages 10.4 points.