Last year, following the announcement that Fort Mill was picked No. 1 in Class AAAA boys basketball preseason poll, coach Bailey Jackson tried to play down the ranking.
"It's not where you start,'' Jackson said. "It's where you finish."
Fort Mill is not No. 1 this year. When the South Carolina Basketball Coaches Association met Wednesday at Fort Jackson, the Yellow Jackets were picked second behind Spartanburg.
"We are excited to be No. 2 and we feel like we have a chance to win it again,'' Jackson said. "There are a few teams in the Upper State and in our region as good as we are, and we know that.''
The Yellow Jackets dropped from the top spot early in the season last year. Five starters were back, but 6-foot-7 center Chalmers Rogers missed most of the first month with a broken arm from dunking on the second day of practice.
Rogers improved as the season wore on and once the playoffs rolled around, showed he was one of the best in the state. He led the Yellow Jackets to wins over Irmo, Easley and Summerville in their final three playoff games on the way to the state championship. They beat Summerville 51-41 in the finals.
"Chalmers is our only returning starter, but we have players who put in good minutes last year,'' Jackson said. "Cameron Smith, who'll start in the post with Chalmers, is 6-6 and he played 10 to 15 minutes a game last season.''
Because of Rogers' strong finish, he was chosen as one of the top five boys players in the state this year, along with Dillon's Lashay Page, Spartanburg's 6-8 center Omar Sanders, Dutch Fork's Murphy Holloway and Summerville's A.J. Green, who will play football at Georgia next year.
Rogers averaged 11.4 points and 7.5 rebounds, shot 55 percent from the field and 75 percent from the free-throw line last season. He was money in the bank during the playoffs, averaging more than 15 points and shooting close to 90 percent from the line, playing tenacious defense against three of the state's top players.
"It's a great honor to be recognized as one of the top five players in the state,'' Rogers said. "Everyone knows about us, so we have to come to play every game because we're the defending state champion.''
Rogers was the area's only preseason top five player for boys or girls. But several other teams cracked the top 10.
In Class AAAA, Northwestern's boys are No. 10 and the girls are No. 8.
Indian Land's girls, Class A's state runner-up last season, are ranked fifth. Great Falls' boys are No. 3 in Class A.
The top five girls are: Lower Richland's Fannie Goodwin, J.L. Mann's Kiki Rutledge, Spring Valley's Jamie Shaw, Goose Creek's Sierra Williams and Latta's Ruby Lee Wright.
• Preseason polls • 4C
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