Lakewood Ranch’s speedy style braces for state semifinal

They were vocal.

They were engaged, and they sang in harmony when the buzzer sounded in last Friday’s region championship basketball game.

They are the members of the Lakewood Ranch High School student section, and they’re taking their act on the road for the Class 8A state final four at The Lakeland Center.

The semifinal game on Friday against Tampa Sickles will see a “whiteout,” with 200 Lakewood Ranch supporters wearing the “We For 3” white shirts, with some green in them.

Mustangs head coach Jeremy Schiller said he is encouraging all fans to wear white for the game.

“We’re just going to white it out,” Schiller said. “So we’re going to get all their parents, their family, their friends and all the people that are coming from my corner of the world.”

Schiller, looking for every possible edge, wants to turn the neutral court game into a home game — for good reason.

Southeast is the only Manatee County boys basketball team to win a state championship, doing so with former NFL wide receiver Peter Warrick playing point guard. En route to their undefeated season in 1994-95, the Seminoles beat teams that included former NBA player Tracy McGrady as well as Teddy Dupay, the state’s all-time leading scorer, in the playoffs.

“I think they’re aware of the magnitude, but they’re just having fun,” Schiller said.

To get to this stage, the Mustangs coaching staff did what it does after every season. The coaches re-evaluated the pieces in place out how to best use them.

Following the 21-win season in 2014-15 that yielded a district runner-up finish, Schiller and his staff realized the methodical offensive system and 2-3 zone wasn’t the right fit for the group he had — or the players coming up from a 19-1 junior varsity campaign. Guys like Damien Gordon, Jack Kelley and Cameron Lindblad were getting promoted to varsity.

So the four-guard starting lineup was born and yielded a region runner-up finish.

This year’s team has Devin Twenty at point guard, Sam Hester (a program record 1,232 career points), Gordon and Evan Spiller as the four starting guards. Justin Muscara, at 6-foot-6, is the starting lineup’s tallest player.

Mix in their pressing defense, and the Mustangs utilized their speed and tenaciousness en route to a 27-2 mark ahead of Friday’s state semifinal.

“You start to go, ‘We have too many good players to only play six or seven,’ ” Schiller said. “It’s not going to be to our advantage. ... I did some research and we had played some similar styles at some different places I had been and I put together a program and kind of said, ‘Alright guys, it’s time to believe in what we’re trying to do. We’re going to literally do the opposite of what you did growing up. We’re going to trap, we’re going to press, we’re going to play super-fast and we’re going to shoot the ball when we’re open.’”

Twenty, the senior point guard, said he loves the style.

“It’s a free time to just be yourself on the court,” Twenty said.

As they needed to do against St. Pete last week, the Mustangs will contend with a Tampa Sickles squad that relies on a big three. Against the Gryphons, that means limiting Bryce Beamer (16.3 ppg.), Bryce Workman (12.5 ppg.) and Marcus Cohen (9.9 ppg., 6.2 apg.).

“There are four teams left out of a hundred in the second-largest class in Florida,” Schiller said. “So they’re really good. They’re well-coached. They’ve played a pretty tough schedule. ... I think the challenge for all of us there, you have to play well. You’ve got to play well to win. No one’s going to be able to go there and ... not play their best and win. So that’s the challenge.”

That challenge awaits Friday in Lakeland with a scheduled 2 p.m. tip.

This story was originally published March 2, 2017 at 9:46 AM with the headline "Lakewood Ranch’s speedy style braces for state semifinal."