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VERBUM DEI BOYS

Southern Section Division IV-A

Verbum Dei should have started this season with confidence and high hopes.

The Eagles were coming off a 1995 season in which they won the State Division IV boys’ basketball championship and a second consecutive Southern Section title.

Then, Coach Mike Kearney, who in seven years had returned a winning atmosphere to the program that had dominated prep basketball in the early 1970s, resigned last May. If that wasn’t enough, his replacement, Deon Evans quit 13 games into this season.

At 3-10 and mired in a seven-game losing streak, the expectations of repeating last year’s success rapidly diminished for the all-boys’ parochial school in Watts.

“We felt like orphans,” said junior Phillip Blackmon, Verbum Dei’s leading rebounder.

“We were losing, we weren’t together, we didn’t practice hard, nobody believed we could win anymore. When Coach [Evans] left, it felt like nobody cared about us.”

With no coach and the team scheduled to play its first league game, the school’s administration turned to its junior varsity coach, Kendric Knox, to steady the program.

He did more than that. Since taking over, Knox and the Eagles have not lost--winning 14 in a row to improve to 17-10.

They return to the Southern Section Division IV-A final against top-seeded Santa Monica Crossroads at the Bren Center Friday night at 6:15.

Knox said he sensed a lack of confidence and also knew he had to assure his players that they could count on him.

“He told us from the start he wasn’t going to quit on us,” Blackmon said.

Knox also knew he had to move quickly. He hired two assistants with Division I college basketball experience, Kevin Williams and Ronnie Gibson, who played at UCLA and Colorado State respectively. They helped Knox install an entirely different game plan.

“First thing we did was go back to Verbum Dei basketball,” Knox said. “We went back to man-to-man defense. We started pressing, pushing the ball up the court. The amazing thing was we only had one day to get ready and we won that first game convincingly.”

While Verbum Dei practices in its immaculate year-old gymnasium, it appears the orphans have found a new home as well as someone to give them direction.

Senior Deon Williams, the team’s standout point guard and leader through the maelstrom of coaching changes, said the Eagles’ self-doubt disappeared the day Knox took over.

“Coach [Knox] was tougher on us than the other coaches,” Williams said. “But he got everyone practicing hard. He ran us a lot in practice and we got in shape. After that we started playing as a team too.”