Darlington looking to settle some unfinished business
By Drake Horton, Contributing Writer
Can three become four, and can none become one?
Those two questions are the only ones fans want answered as the Darlington Falcons boys basketball team gets ready to embark on a new season.
Coming off its third straight lower-state title appearance, the Falcons are looking to make one last run with a senior led group that is responsible for a majority of the success the program has enjoyed over the last three years.
“I hope it is an expectation for our guys,” Darlington boys head coach Ken Howle said on the season. “We want to get one more in.”
Led by senior Frankie Johnson, getting to start his fifth year of varsity basketball, Darlington not only wants to make it back to the Florence Civic Center, a home away from home for the Falcons it seems, it wants to get back to the Colonial Life Arena and compete for that coveted state championship.
The Falcons won the lower-state championship two years ago before falling to A.C. Flora in the fourth quarter of the state championship and Darlington wants nothing more than to get back to that stage and finish the job.
We have high expectations,” Howle said, explaining what is expected and why it is expected. “You have four starters basically coming back, 11 of the 12 played last year. We had one kid transfer in that played with them in middle school (Isaac Simmons).
Over the last three years, especially the last two, Darlington has become more and more of a guard heavy, outside shooting team with last year’s team setting records for attempted three pointers and made three pointers.
This year’s team is going to be no different. Darlington is going to only be carrying 12 men instead of the normal 14 to 15 and the reason for that is simple. It’s about the experience.
“We are just carrying 12 guys and all of them were on the team last year except for one,” Howle said, describing how experienced his roster is. “So everybody is experienced.”
Alongside Johnson, Darlington is returning fellow starting guards Marquis Green and Tyriq Smith and stretch forward Donavan Johnson to give the Falcons a deadly combination of outside shooters that should once again make the Falcons the best three-point shooting team again in the state.
Having that much experience courtside at Howle’s disposal, the Falcons are considered by most to be the team to beat in the lower state and outside of Seneca from the upstate; Darlington is seen by most as the best team in all of 3A regardless of lower or upper state.
Howle and his coaching staff are looking to take full advantage of all of the experience especially due to the fact that four players, including Johnson have not been able to practice as much because of football.
With every player on the roster except for one already knowing the ins and outs of Howle’s system, he and the coaching staff do not have to worry as much about teaching and can instead just call a play and know that the players on the court are ready to run it effectively.
“We feel like we have experience,” Howle said on that status of his roster and what it means in terms of preparation. “We don’t have to do as much teaching and putting stuff in, like I can call something we haven’t worked on and they know what I’m talking about.”
Going into this season Darlington is going to have nine seniors on the roster so for most of the players this is their last chance to win that exclusive state championship that each one so desperately want.
The down fall of having so many seniors means that next year will be a fresh start for the Falcons, but that is something Howle and his staff knows and they have already began preparing for it with how the junior varsity team is set up; it is comprised of mostly ninth graders meaning that next year’s Darlington team will look a lot like this team did three years ago.
But that discussion is for next year, because these Falcons are not in a rebuilding phase at this moment. They are in a “lets win now” phase and with the returning talent that possibility can easily become fact.
It is going to be a very exciting season for Falcons basketball.