MemphisHoopers.com 2024 – 2025 Memphis, TN. High School Preseason Preview.
Dire tristate Basketball Fans has bolstered its stature with Penny Hardaway solidifying his position as a top national caliber head coach. One of the top basketball coaches in the country in former Memphis Coach John Calipari back in the area with the Arkansas Razorbacks who always had a Memphis connection for Life. There has been an abundant change of high school basketball head coaches around the city in above average numbers accordingly and MemphisHoopers.com is going to give an overall breakdown of the major basketball high schools. Which will include the preseason Top Ten Team Poll, junior and senior boys rankings, girls junior and senior player rankings which will be all together.
Memphis Basketball has definitely changed from being a Top 5 – 7 in the country hot bed for recruiting to maybe around 20 to 25 in the country, definitely a major overall change. There are many different reasons that can attribute to that negative distinction. Reasons can be argued on all different levels: From charter schools, especially this year with nationwide prep schools that have vacuumed the local tri state area, Covid era, with those factors in mind for the first time has made a major overall impact. With that being said, it most definitely has changed some of the year in and year out high school basketball programs.
MemphisHoopers.com 2024 – 2025 Preseason Top Ten of the top high school basketball programs in the city and they become concrete after the first week of high school. You can’t actually go by June summer camp individuals because they will change course in a matter of minutes like overnight manner never seen before and cant say respectively across the board on all enrollment levels. They all include Division A, AA, AAA on the TSSAA side. On the private school sector with the small division n big divisions which will be all included accordingly.
We will start with MemphisHoopers.com 2024-2025 Memphis, Tennessee High School Preseason Top Ten Rankings: No.1 Whitehaven High one of the top academic high schools in the country with rich history (ACT, STEM Nationally prestigious programs) come in at No.1 with second year coach, Memphis alumni Wille Kemp will lead a very talented group of young men with big man 6’8 Bob Dickson, and 6’6 Cameron Brown. How did Mitchell High let Brown transfer n definitely drew speculation for their basketball program demise. At number comes in Houston and they would have been a unanimous No 1 pick but with the sudden departure of Jacob Walker opting for Sunrise Christian in Bel Aire, Kansas they fall to No.2, the cougars still boast a strong and formidable team with seniors 6’6 Keron Jackson and 6’0 Caleb Jeffries with veteran head coach Rob Sabau. The No.3 slot is for an underperforming team the last several years with hopes in the beginning of the seasons but to falter at the end. Hoopers staff has one thing to say, Covid 19 supercharged their basketball program with Memphis Shelby County Schools n TSSAA cancelled the remaining of the season stretching into two seasons and benefited from a exodus of players especially Central High coached by then coach John Anderson who has since retired.
At the No.4 spot goes to Briarcrest High coached by veteran coach by John Harrington who actually came from Bartlett High when they won a state gold ball with nationally ranked Fred Smith who definitely is a top player “Hands Down”. They will be a top contender to win TSSAA Division 2 big schools. No.5 is held by Ridgeway High School and made nice postseason runs last two years and have reloaded with a mildly young group. No.6 Fayette Ware under the tutelage of one of the top upcoming high school coaches in the area in Coach DeMarius Chearis and once again will make some serious noise in Double AA into postseason with four straight sub state appearances going 2-2 in sounding fashion and a Fayette Ware alumni. Sitting at No.7 is CBHS with a veteran 35 plus years veteran in Coach Bubba Luckett at the school will once again field another strong school in the Division 2 small school section that will truly have another strong season and will as always tally a very well coached team year in and year out.
Central High holds the No.8 slot on the preseason poll with Coach Nardo as one of the top coaches in the city n great with X’s and O’s in his second season after successful runs at East High and MAHS since 2011. The Warriors will battle Whitehaven in 16-AAA district play with home and away games plus postseason action has one of the top guards in the city in 6’2 Damion Potts Jr. and 6’4 Jalen Evans. MBA comes into the preseason rankings for the first time in school history with the athletics program plus academics excelling in leaps and bounds and come in at No.9 respectively. The last spot in the 2024-2025 preseason rankings is Douglass High with another great coach in Greg Williams who has transformed Douglass basketball to its highest axis in all the iconic high school’s history making it to the state championship game two years in a row only to lost to Alcoa in both instances. After losing their top player plus other key components, we will see the resilience in a good or bad season, but Hoopers staff has great faith in the red devils.
Other schools of interest and there a lot of schools with new first year coaches or accepted new positions at other school in the last two years with the coaching landscape changed dramatically. They are and to start with is Westwood High who named Coach Shack who has always been in the basketball world with T-Gand Express to assistant coach at Douglass and now is his first ever high school basketball and a great coach with a high basketball IQ. Hillcrest with a very successful basketball run in the last years and with the previous Melrose coach. Fairley also has a new hire and has made so moves with a few transfers and yet to see if are meaningful. Bluff City, Trezevant, Melrose, Raleigh Egypt, Craigmont, Overton, Millington, Munford, FACS, St. Georges are a few years away from programs in the spotlight so who might be the surprise team out of this group so please take the poll and vote for your selection.
Harold Rivera
Writer for MemphisHoopers.com and Team Thad Young for Youth Organization
901-502-3567
