The Wizard Of Baileyton: Despite Doubts Buchanan Has Lady Huskies Back In State Tournament

As I was getting in my car and preparing to leave Midway on Saturday night my phone began to ring.

On the other end was my sister. She’s a college basketball coach and had been keeping up with sectional scores across the state throughout the evening. As soon as I answered, she blurts out, "What the heck just happened? Is James Buchanan some type of Wizard?”

She had seen that North Greene had just beaten Midway 33-31 to advance to the state tournament for the fifth straight year, and like many basketball fans across the state she was surprised. Midway was a good team with good guards who were supposed to be too much for the Lady Huskies to handle. But like it has done all year North Greene found a way to win.

Buchanan would be the first to dismiss the use of sorcery in his game plans, but what the longtime leader of the Lady Huskies has done this year is hard to explain with any sort of tangible criteria. Saturday, in fact, was just the latest example of the Huskies beating a team that they weren’t supposed to.

During the Ladies Classic they shocked everyone in attendance with wins over Oak Ridge and Daniel Boone, both of whom advanced to the Class 4A region semifinals. The Lady Huskies beat a 20-win South Greene team, and in the Region 1-1A semifinals they soundly defeated a 24-win Washburn team. In total North Greene has amassed a 26-10 record, which is more wins than it had in two of its four previous trips to the state tournament.

While Buchanan’s game planning for his opponents along the way has been exceptional, he gives all the credit to a group of girls that he describes as the most coachable he’s ever been around.

"This group plays with so much grit and determination, and they are so willing to be coached,” Buchanan said. "This is the most coachable group I’ve had. They do everything I ask them to do. I go back to the Ladies Classic where we played five games in five days. That’s hard for a teenager. You play one day, come back, watch film, do a walk through and play the next afternoon with a completely different game plan. Now they’ve won 26 games, and it’s all because they are coachable. I’m my time doing this I’ve learned that if you have kids that want to win and want to learn you can do great things with them. That’s what this bunch has done.”

Coming into the year it was reasonable to doubt the Lady Huskies. Simply put, they did not have a guard on the roster that had proven herself at the varsity level. Loren Blevins, Lisa Kurze and Kaydence Marshall were not even on the team a year ago. Heidi Harmon and Ella Head rarely played outside of mop-up duty, and if Mercy Buchanan was in during a tight game, it was because of foul problems.

The way the group has risen to the challenge this year is a big reason the Lady Huskies have found success in the postseason.

"None of those girls played in any real important minutes last year,” Buchanan said. "The thought process for most people was that our guard play was going to be too weak this year. They got better and better as the year went on. They figured out what we needed to do to win. Let’s be honest, we aren’t the greatest shooting team, and if you take our inside game away you end up with a 30-point game. But they have decided that if we can’t score we’ll just keep the other team from scoring. If we are going to be low, they hold them lower, and we’ve won games like that all year.”

While North Greene’s guards were an unknown coming into the season Buchanan knew he had two good ones in the post in Haley Bailey and Hannah Miller, but even they have exceeded expectations. 

Bailey went from a role player and often sixth man a year ago, to turning in one of the best statistical seasons in program history. She has averaged 19 points and nine rebounds per game on her way to becoming a Miss Basketball finalist as a senior.

Miller has been a double-double machine all year, and her ability to control the paint has been invaluable this season. Against Midway that was more evident than ever, as she shut down the Lady Green Wave’s drivers and in doing so sent her team to the state tournament.

"Hannah and Hailey is all we had back, and for the biggest part of the season those two really helped our guards come along,” Buchanan said. "They really matured us, and they helped us break in those other girls. Haley was our best ball handler at times early in the season and we were counting on her to do so much. People don’t know how important Hannah is in what we do. She makes up for so many mistakes. They give out MVP awards and Player of the Year awards, but if they gave out and Most Important Player award, hands down it’s been Hannah.”

The tests will not get any easier for the Lady Huskies, and that starts on Wednesday at 4 p.m. Central Time when they take on Greenfield in the opening round of the Class 1A State Tournament. Greenfield enters the state tournament with a 22-10 record after wining the District 14-1A championship and finishing as District 7-1A runner up.

The Lady Huskies and the Lady Yellow Jackets last met in 2020 in the first-round of the state tournament. In that meeting Greenfield won 68-40.

On Wednesday Greenfield will bring a talented squad into the Murphy Center in Murfreesboro. In its state sectional win over Memphis Middle College freshman guard Rayanna Fisher put in 18 points and so did 6’0” post Emma Alford. The Lady Yellow Jackets will put another six-footer in the starting lineup as well in Anna Grace Abernathy.

"They are fast, athletic and they shoot it well. Offensively they are kind of combination of Unaka, Cloudland and Midway,” Buchanan said. "Even though it’s a similar offense some of the players have different skill sets. Hopefully we are prepared and focused. They are better than Midway and they are every bit as good as Cloudland. Those are two teams we struggled with. We are going to have to defend well to win this game.”

If North Greene were to win on Wednesday, it would play again on Friday against the winner of Moore County (25-8) and Clay County (22-10).

The other quarterfinals include Cloudland (28-1) vs. Pickett County (26-2), and Wayne County (30-3) vs. South Fulton (22-8).