The real deal from Mr. Steele…..Do we need to add James Worthy to all-time Best list?

Dudes:

I am a hoops fanatic and collector of basketball games. I also came of age in Greensboro, attending Western Guilford High School. I was wondering if you guys knew of anyone who had a wide collection of North Carolina high school basketball games on DVD. Looking mostly for early-mid-90s stuff (Dudley, Greensboro Day, Little Four torunaments, WGHS). I have a collection of college hoops games and am looking to get more prep stuff.

If you can’t help me, maybe you can list your top 5 NC prep games of all-time and/or your top 5 prep players from NC. I am always interested in that.

Thanks,
Ben

We hope some of the readers here at GREENSBOROSports.com can help you out Ben. Among the top five all-time high school basketball players I would have to list: David Thompson, Eric “Sleepy” Floyd, Bobby Jones, Phil Ford, and Bob McAdoo….Thompson from what used to be Shelby Crest and is now Boiling Springs Crest, Floyd from Gastonia Ashbrook. Jones from South Mecklenburg, Ford from Rocky Mount, and we have to put in a local boy with McAdoo from Greensboro Smith…..

Some honorable mentions go to Michael Jordan from Wilmington Laney, Rod Griffin from down near Farmville, Danny Manning who spent some time at Greensboro Page, Buzz Peterson from up in Asheville, Jason Capel who was at Greensboro Day for one year in the 8th grade, Sleepy Taylor from Bartlett Yancey, Danny Traylor from Reynolds, Rusty LaRue from Northwest Guilford, Tommy Burleson from Avery County, Eric Hicks from Greensboro Dudley and there are more we can add when we have more time……

Best games all-time that we have seen or heard about…..Greensboro Day over Dudley in the GDS Bengals’ first-ever Little Four with Thomas Robert leading GDS to an overtime win…..

Dudley over Pender County in overtime at the East Regional at ECU back in 2000, three-pointer by Dominique Brown to send it into OT and a two-pointer by Ryan Brown to win it for the Panthers…

Dudley over West Forsyth in the West Regionals in 1996 up in Hickory at Lenior Rhyne. West had Tictus Pettigrew who had signed a football/basketball deal with Penn State and Dudley had Brendan Haywood, Vincent Whitt, and Braxton Williams all who went on to college…

Greensboro Day over Charlotte Christian and Stephen Curry plus his little brother Seth Curry in the 2005 NCISAA State 3-A title game. It was a simply amazing how GDS was able to go right at the Currys and take them out of their game with excellent defense by Travis Leonard.

Northwest Guilford in a 3OT shootout over Reidsville back in the mid-1990’s. Rusty LaRue had 40 plus points for NWG and CC Harrison had 40 or more for Reidsville but LaRue and NWG won the ball game at NWG in the old Viking gym….NWG has also had some wars with Morehead and Donnie Seale in that same time frame…

One more and then we gotta go for today…North Forsyth girls over the Page Pirates at the 1997 West Regionals in Hickory at Lenior Rhyne. The Pirates were up by one with less than 15 seconds to play and Page throws the ball into the backcourt instead of making the pass up court and then they foul and the North player hits the one-and-one on her very first shots of the day and North goes to Chapel Hill to play for the state title and Page goes home, season over. All the Pirates had to do was throw the ball toward their on basket and they would have won the game…..

Best Western Guilford teams were the Jerry Russell, Jimmy Duncan and I believe a little late Chris Chavis thrown in for good measure squads. WG also turned out Ray Coble whose son was a star this past season at High Point Wesleyan and there was Mark Guenther, Goose Tatum, Wayne Weatherman, Robbie McKoin, current state senator Johnny Blust, Johnny Ralls, current Page High School coach Robert Kent and many more…..

10 thoughts on “The real deal from Mr. Steele…..Do we need to add James Worthy to all-time Best list?

  1. Dont forget James Worthy on the list of great players.

    Also, one of the best I have ever seen is Reggie Spruill from Page who played in the mid 70’s for Mac Morris. He was an explosive scorer and had the ability to take over a game. He could have been a star atD1 but unfortunately had many problems off the the court.

  2. Ditto on James Worthy

    And the starting 5 has to include Pistol Pete Maravich of Raleigh Braughton.

  3. Do we need to add James Worthy to the list of all-time best high school basketball players in the state of North Carolina? He was from Gastonia Ashbrook just like Sleepy Floyd and as for Reggie Spruill, he went to the University of Georgia and didn’t stay there long. He was on my intramural basketball team at Liberty University for a few weeks and had hopes of making it to the varsity team at Liberty that was coached at the time by former NC A&T head man Warren Reynolds and the assistant coach was former ABA player Harley “Skeeter” Swift. Liberty’s top guard was Karl Hess who was the referee in the UCLA-Memphis game back on Saturday….Liberty also had Ed Vickers and Greg Branch who transferred in from NC A&T.

    Unfortunately, Reggie didn’t make it up at Liberty and one of the last times I saw him he was walking down Randleman Road. I did see him later on and he was a cook/chef at a fairly nice restaurant downtown….

  4. Rodney Rodgers had some good years in Durham, Wake Forest and the NBA. There was this guy from Kinston named Stackhouse too. John Lucas played for Durham Hillside. Chris Paul had some good games for West Forsyth.

  5. This list is starting to take on a life of it’s own.

    What about Chris Washburn from up at Hickory High and then later the Laurinburg Institute? He was a power in his day…..

    Good list and some excellent comments…..

    Sorry gang, this old man is not here to steal the show, although when you consider outdoor games played, I am the Show, but are we leaving out a playa that was in some trouble but he was one of the best scorers of all-time and I believe he now holds the N.C. prep career record for most points scored, and that is our man JamesOnCurry from Eastern Alamance…….

  6. Here are a few names from the mid-90s – Nathan Jameson from High Point Wesleyan and Terrance Holt from Eastern Guilford – that usually get lost in the shuffle of Whitt, Gainey, Haywood and Braxton Williams. Not many people remember Holt was almost as good a baller as a football player.

    I remember being intimidated by Centillis Tucker and Brian Slade at Northeast (although mostly in middle school.) Southwest Guilford _ Todd Ashworth, Rod Boger. Northwest – I can’t think… High Point Andrews – Jason Blackwood. Brad Hoover from Ledford was a pretty good player before going onto NFL fame.

  7. Jameson later played at UNCG and then he worked there after graduation, then he took a coaching job up North somewhere. I played some outdoor ball against some very good former Grimsley guys like Walker Holt, Adam Cooper, Joey Cooper, Ron Harris, Tim Leung, Big Genaro Lawhorne but no Cameron Bennerman……

  8. The best ever high school basketball players from Greensboro? Start with
    Bob McAdoo (Smith), Lou Hudson & Freddie “Curley” Neal (Dudley) and perhaps the most complete player of all Raynard Harrison (Page). Raynard and David Thompson were co-MVPs in the 1971 East-West All-State Game. Raynard was a Parade All-American in football (QB/Wide Receiver) and basketball (guard). Mac and Lou Hudson are Hall of Famers, Curley Neal in Mr. Harlem Globetrotter. Raynard struggled at Carolina where he played for 3 seasons. Phil Ford later succeeded him at point guard and led Carolina to an upset win over NC State in ACC Tournament in 1975. Ask anybody from that era — nobody was better than Raynard. He also tied state high jump record (previously set by McAdoo and Bobby Jones). Oh yeah, he was only about 6 ft 2 inches in height.

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