65 www.ReadMPM.com | www.MountPleasantMagazine.com | www.MountPleasantPodcast.com WANDO WARRIORS If you stay in coaching long enough at any level, chances are that at some point you will have to rebuild from scratch and that is what Wando boys basketball’s new head coach John Reynolds will inherit for the 2025-26 season. Coming off a 4-22 mark last year, punctuated by a 15-point loss to Summerville in Round 1 of the state playoffs and nine straight losses to end the season, the Warriors return to Region 7 AAAAA looking up from the bottom at everyone else. “We will have very little experience on the court, but we have a young core of players that I am excited to coach,” Reynolds said. “Our emphasis from April until now has been laying the foundation for our program and learning our core concepts.” Which means that from the most experienced player to the newest arrival, Reynolds will largely be coaching the team on how to compete and get stronger over time with respect to winning later. Despite his team’s youth and relative inexperience in a tough region, the Warriors can point to a few promising moments from last season, most notably wins over Philip Simmons, Bishop England and a narrow 57-55 win over a Berkeley squad that finished 20-7. But Warrior teams in the last decade have been good only a few times, posting an overall mark of 127-141 since 2014-15. So the real challenge for Reynolds and his first team is not so much to win, but to begin changing the mindset of Wando Warrior basketball as merely serving to keep athletes in shape between fall and spring sports. “I’m aware of the school’s basketball history and I do think our best years are ahead of us,” Reynolds said this past summer shortly after being hired. “But those years won’t come unless we build on it right now. And I’ve been encouraged by the skill and intangibles of this group.” LUCY BECKHAM BENGALS When Marquise Pointer took over as the Lucy Beckham boys basketball head coach in 2024, he was determined to not only turn the program back into a winner, but to give the school’s home-game atmosphere a complete overhaul. Those hopes, however, came instead with a lot of recurring first-season blues as the Bengals finished with an overall record of 10-12, a fourth place 4-6 mark in Region 7 AAAAA and lost four out of their final five games of the season, capped by a decisive 17-point first round playoff loss to Lugoff-Elgin. Where the team goes in the new season is anyone’s guess at this point, as they get early tests against area rival Bishop England; Ashley Ridge, who pummeled the Bengals 7759 last season; and defending Region 2 AAAA champion Porter-Gaud, which finished last year on a 13-game winning streak en route to a 22-5 mark and a state championship. From there, the going gets tough, as the Bengals square off twice in region play against Goose Creek and Cane Bay – both of which swept Lucy Beckham this past winter. Hardwood Heroes Boys basketball season preview BY L. C. LEACH III our sports John Reynolds directing traffic during a Wando practice. Lucy Beckham boys coach Marquise Pointer hopes to improve his team’s basketball fortunes in the new year.
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