By Marty Gordon
NRVsports@ourvalley.org
Radford High School basketball coach Rick Cormany doesn’t like to use words like dynasty, great and historic, but others sure have when they talk about the school’s boys’ basketball program. For the second straight year, Cormany and his team hoisted the state title. The nucleus of that team remains, meaning trouble for competition once again as his team continues to rewrite the record books.
So, for the second year in a row, the Radford High School boys’ basketball team can lay claim as the area’s top sports of the year.
Guard Quinton Morton-Robertson was named the state’s 1A player of year, and Rick Cormany is the 1A coach of the year.
The state title was Cormany’s second straight and fifth overall. The coach said the honor for Quinton or “Q” as he is called is well deserved.
“It was a well-deserved honor for Q. He averaged 20 points for the year but around 25 for the three state games, and he was forced to score more this year than he likes. He is a true point guard and prefers to distribute the ball first,” Cormany said.
Morton-Robertson scored 593 total points and averaged 20.4 points per game this season. He shot 51 percent from the field and 44.2 percent from behind the three-point line. He also pulled down 87 rebounds.
The key is that Morton-Robertson is only a junior, a scary part for opposing teams, and Cormany believes he has a lot of potential.
“I definitely think he will continue to get stronger and better. He is a D1 (Division I college) point guard. Not sure the level yet,” he said
As a team, the Bobcats scored an average of 61.3 points per game this season while only allowing an average of 47 points by their opponents.
Cormany was humbled with being named state coach of the year, and credited both his players and assistant coaches for a job well done. “Great players and especially great assistants make good head coaches and I have both.”
Radford will move up a classification from 1A to 2A this year because of an increase in student enrollment, but so far, that has not meant any change in the production as the Bobcats are undefeated going into January.
In addition to Morton-Robertson, Cormany also returns 6-5 center Miles Jones and 6-2 forward Cam Edwards to a team that reloaded for another state run. Jones and Edwards are also just juniors.
But Cormany is not ready to claim another state championship. “It will be tougher in the higher classification with the likes of Martinsville and Dan River,” he said.
The odds are in Radford’s favor and those unspoken words might be mentioned once again when the winter basketball season comes to an end.
