Dragons win national title

Published April 21, 2010
By Steve Pivnick
81st Medical Group Public Affairs

KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- The Keesler Dragons basketball squad is the National Military Athletic Association's men's basketball national champion.

The three-time Southeast Athletic Military Conference champs garnered the NMAA trophy April 12 by defeating Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, 73-72. This followed earlier wins over Los Angeles AFB (81-62), Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., (79-68) and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Calif., (95-58) during the tournament that began April 9 at Lackland.

Coach Jesse Harris, 81st Inpatient Operations Squadron, said the Keesler squad earned an automatic bid to the DOD finals by winning the 2009-10 Southeastern Military Conference regular season championship.

"We beat Lackland for the 2005 AETC championship," he noted. "Now we've beaten them for both of our championships."

"The win feels great because of all the adversity we had faced," Harris said. "At the start of the season, we didn't even know if we would even have a team. Then our best player deployed just before the championship. Then five players from our original team couldn't travel to the tournament.

"Fortunately, the league commissioner gave us permission to pick up five players from our conference to fill out the squad," the coach continued. " We had to meld the new guys into the system and they were great. There was even a college scout who was surprised at how well they played as a team after such a brief time."

In addition to Harris, Keesler's championship squad included assistant coach Stephen Harris (336th Training Squadron), guards Kenneth Dukes (81st Communications Squadron) and Lester Marshall (81st Diagnostics and Therapeutics Squadron) and Drevell Herron and Wendell Thibeaux (Eglin AFB, Fla.); guards/forwards Sherrod Brown (81st Mission Support Group) and Ollie Bradley and Larry Haynes (Maxwell AFB, Ala.); forwards/centers Ryan Vaught (Eglin) and Alvin Holmes (81st Surgical Operations Squadron) and James Mathews (a Navy weather student at Keesler's Center for Naval Aviation Technical Training Unit.)

Four Keesler players scored in double digits in the championship matchup. Dukes led with 15 followed by Matthews (13), Herron (12) and Haynes (11). Holmes and Vaught each tallied 8 and Thibeaux had 4.

Dukes was named the tournament's most valuable player based on his consistent play during the competition. Matthews was selected for the All-Tournament Team.

Harris said Keesler's varsity team invests a lot of time, energy and expense to represent the base.

"We spent seven months practicing for and traveling to regular season games and tournaments -- not to mention scrimmages and games away in Mobile and places like that to open the season for some junior colleges," he pointed out. "Everything is out of pocket except for the vehicles we get for away games."
Harris had special praise for assistant coach Stephen Harris.

"There's no way we could possibly have succeeded without him," Harris insisted. "He was vital to us throughout the tournament. It's important to understand we accomplished this as a team!"

The coach added, "I'm glad we can finally relax before we start the process all over again in September. We're looking forward to going to D.C. next year and winning the title again."

Susan Griggs, Keesler News editor, contributed to this report.