HANCEVILLE, Ala.- When head coach Stu Stuedeman took Cullman to the Final Four in 2022, it was the first time the school had been in 90 years. In just his fifth season, he’s taking the Bearcats back again.
The Birmingham native has continued to redefine Cullman basketball, with the latest update being the Bearcats’ 80-53 thrashing of Lee-Huntsville to take the 6A Boys NW Regional Championship.
On paper, Lee matched up well size-wise and athletically with Cullman. On the court, it was a different story. After the teams traded early blows, Jon Luke Witcher hit a three from the corner and Sam Dorough, the eventual tournament MVP, hit two from deep to jolt the Bearcats out to a 18-10 lead at the end of the first.
In the second quarter, Cullman’s identity of ‘CHAOS’ was on full display. Their press defense thwarted any and all plays from Lee, and they thrived in the open court, with Owen Graves nailing a three from the corner in transition to put the Bearcats up 21-10 to start the quarter. The three-point numbers themselves can almost tell the story of the first half, with Cullman going 7-15 from deep and Lee failing to hit one at all. The FG shooting told a similar story, with Cullman shooting nearly 48% and Lee only going 6-26. The disparity gave the Bearcats a commanding 34-14 halftime lead.
“When we can hit our threes and set our pressure, we’re pretty nasty. A lot of what we do is predicated off of making three-point baskets, playing fast, getting in our pressure, getting people sped up into bad shots. So, when we’re making threes, we’re really really tough to beat. I don’t think we’ve had a game this year where we’ve made ten or more threes and lost. So if we’re making threes in a situation like that, we’re going to be hard to deal with because we can set our defense, we can get into you full-court, 94-feet, and we can figure out how to guard you in the halfcourt as well. They’re fantastic guys, it’s not easy to shoot in a bigger gym and our guys stepped in there, toed the line and shot it confidently,” Stuedeman said on the shooting performance.
The second half opened with a pair of pick-and-roll layups from Brooks Loftin, then a driving lay from Dorough. The Generals, feeling the desperation of a 20-point deficit still, moved into a hard press defense. Cullman was thrown off, causing a wave of turnovers that allowed a speedy Lee team to fly down the court. Mid-way through the third, the Generals had cut their deficit to just 42-31, but Bearcat guard Colt Fletcher shut the door on the comeback attempt, nailing two threes on consecutive possessions. The increase in breathing room allowed Cullman to slow back down, and Emory Bonds closed the quarter out with a buzzer-beating put-back to make it a 52-33 Cullman lead.
The final frame was all Bearcats, with Dorough, Owen Graves and Fletcher all hitting threes to add to an incredible 13-27 (48.1%) shooting day from deep, and put an additional 28-points of salt on the wound of the Generals, who lost 80-53.
“Great game by our guys, I’m just so proud of them. When we won the Sweet 16 game I thought we were a little nervous to start the game. So, we talked about not coming to take part, but to take over, and thriving in advance. It’s a worn out term in all of basketball to ‘survive and advance,’ we’re not here to survive anything, we’re here to thrive. I thought our players, as they do night in and night out, executed our game plan and everything we asked them to do perfectly and I’m just so proud of them and all the hard work they put in,” Stuedeman said on the win.
Dorough led the game with 20 points and added five boards and six assists. Loftin and Hopper were major factors in Cullman out-rebounding the Generals 40-20, with Loftin grabbing nine alongside his 17 points and Hopper bringing down ten to go along with his ten points. Both were awarded spots on the All-Tournament team, as well.
Cullman moves on to face either Spain Park or Calera on March 4th at 10:30 a.m. at the BJCC in the State Semifinal.
