Witnessing Basketball History, Part IV

It almost never happens.

Crops of “promising” young talent are in abundance in school districts in nearly every county across the state each and every year.

Young bucks who have been working with a parent or another coach throughout their formative years are going to be the group that leads their school to the promised land - a.k.a. The Big House and a gold ball.

But it almost never happens.

Sometimes kids move. Sometimes kids stop

Sometimes kids stop playing.

Usually, though, we just discover the group isn’t as good - on a statewide scale - as we thought.

It’s just reality.

So, yeah, I heard the talk about this team that included some Birdwell kid, a Ridenour, the younger Daugherty boy and this kid named Bijan, among a few others.

They almost never lost. Like….almost never.

But that’s not unheard of, yet I was still listening.

Then they got to junior high.

The losing never showed up. In fact, this team was dominating folks.

This group just might be different after all.

Then they get to high school.

The Ridenour and the younger Daugherty boy aren’t quite ready for varsity as freshmen. Completely understandable.

Birdwell gets his name on the varsity roster, but he’s not yet at the level to contribute on a nightly basis.

But this Bijan kid is. He’s penciled in as a starter.

And, to add to the group’s already promising future, some kid named Stone moves in from Deer Creek over the summer.

Turns out he might be decent. Decent enough to start as a freshman as well.

They’re starting on a team that’s coming off its first-ever state championship.

When Kingfisher hosted Marlow in the season opener, the stands were full.

The excitement of 2017 was still spilling over, but the promise of returnees like Jett and Trey and newcomers like Matt and Bijan had people excited like never before.

It almost never happens.

A young group’s promise is almost never fulfilled.

It’s usually because they’re just not good enough.

But this group might be different. It was.

One way to go 107-4 over four years is to always show up.

Never take a day off. That was a signature of the Kingfisher Yellowjackets the last four-plus years.

They were talented… more talented than nearly every team they faced.

But they never didn’t show up to play (pardon the double-negative).

Sure, there were games when they were flat. There were games they didn’t play well.

But they always got through it.

This group never - ever - gave inferior teams hope that they might pull off the upset.

Games were usually over by the end of the first quarter. Almost definitely by halftime.

Those teams that still had a glimmer of hope entering the third quarter were brought back to reality within just a couple of minutes of the second half.

Kingfisher overwhelmed nearly every opponent it faced over the last four years.

Coaches had them ready to play, sure. But they also came out with their own intensity and mindset that they expected - nay, demanded - to win.

Margins of victory against poor teams were huge. Margins of victory over good teams were huge.

Margins of victory over really good teams were almost always double digits.

Proof: In the 107 wins the last four years, only seven (6.5 percent) were by single digits. Two were to the OKC Storm (loaded home-school squad), two were to eventual state champs (Kingston in 2019 and Carl Albert in 2021) and two were in the state tournament (Ada in 2018 and Heritage Hall in 2021).

The other was Washington in 2019 in one of those rare games in which the Jackets never fully got going.

That kind of ratio held true in the state tournament.

KHS was 8-1 in the last three state tournaments (again, no 2020 state competition due to COVID).

In the eight wins, two were by single digits (Ada by 5 in 2018 quarterfinals and Heritage Hall by 8 in this year’s championship).

Kingfisher has been most impressive in the semifinals.

It beat Webster by 25 in 2018, Holland Hall by 26 in 2019 and Classen SAS by 25 this season.

After losing to Heritage Hall by 5 in the 2018 championship, the Jackets followed it up with wins by 20 and 8 over the Chargers in the next two title games.

That’s 107-4 over four years.

The group won 96 percent of the time and nearly 94 percent of those wins were by double digits.

Here’s that “promising” group that made it happen:

Despite what our championship game story said, Ian Daugherty sat out his sophomore season, not his freshman year of basketball (my mistake…the only one I’ve ever made).

Wanting to concentrate on baseball, Daugherty stepped away from football and basketball and eventually helped the Jackets reach the baseball state semifinals for the first time ever.

But he returned to the court for his junior campaign.

And he not only worked himself into the playing rotation on an undefeated team, he was beginning to hear his name called in the starting lineups by the end of the year.

That carried over into this season.

The thing I told people about Daugherty: “He doesn’t have to score a single point and can still have a huge impact on a game.”

Daugherty sets screens (hello Edmond North and Weatherford), he defends, he rebounds, he passes… and he can even score when called upon. I remember two games where the Jackets’ first offensive sets were to get him the ball in the post.

Daugherty wasn’t a great scorer, but he didn’t need to be. He actually has great touch, but he wasn’t needed to show it off.

And he was fine with that.

More importantly about Ian: He’s the poster child for the kind of guy you want in the locker room.

Magnetic, positive personality. Talks up his teammates. Does the right things.

He’s the ultimate teammate…and never has to score a point.

But don’t leave him open too many times beyond that 3-point line…

Maverick Ridenour delivered the most spine-tingling made 3-pointer we’ve perhaps ever witnessed at Kingfisher High School.

You can read all about it in our championship game wrap-up section, or even Part I of this series.

He also provided the second-half defensive effort in the title game that will go down in the annals of KHS history. You can read about that in those editions as well (you should have already, TBH).

Those remarkable feats aside, Ridenour is one of the best shooters to ever play for the Jackets.

Once the other facets of his game - not to mention his growth spurt - caught up, Ridenour became a true weapon.

But he also had a confidence about him…something along the same lines of one of his predecessors, Reece Lafferty.

It got him in trouble a couple of times (got him an extended period of time on the bench against Anadarko and arguably almost got him beat up at Carl Albert), but it’s also what gave him the ability to drain that 3-pointer and shut down Trey Alexander.

You’ve got to have that confidence to be a shooter. You go through dry spells. Sometimes the shot just doesn’t feel right. Sometimes it does, but it just won’t drop.

But you have to keep shooting.

Ridenour went through a couple of those spells in each of the last two seasons.

But he had the confidence - and the coaches’ backing - to keep shooting.

Eventually, they started to drop again.

I’m excited to see how Ridenour’s game grows as he heads to Link Prep Academy and “shoots” to continue to improve and earn a basketball scholarship down the road.

He’s shown continued improvements throughout this high school career… there’s no reason to believe that won’t continue in the future.

I pride myself on being a calm person on press row at the state tournament.

I’ve had family members win state championships, have seen my teams win their first state titles and even one at the buzzer.

I’ve seen true dynasties played out before my eyes.

But I’m a picture of calm sitting at my seat because one of the unwritten rules in my profession is this:

No cheering on press row.

It’s apparently an unknown rule to some who are lucky enough to have those seats, but I’ve made sure throughout the years to maintain a level of professionalism, no matter how badly I’ve wanted my teams to win.

But danged if Jarret Birdwell didn’t test my resolve this year.

During the Jackets’ semifinal rout of Classen SAS, Birdwell had his best game of the playoffs.

In the second half, he caught a pass from a driving Bijan, took one step toward the bucket and rose up….

Then he absolutely brought the (Big) house down with a two-hand slam.

Like I said, I’m the picture of cool (shut up) on press row. But you can see me on the team’s film and I lean forward in my seat as the play happened.

That was actually me almost standing to my feet because of Birdwell’s play, which is about as excited as I’ve been all season.

It was just one of those moments.

(By the way, his mom wasn’t nearly as calm as me as she more than came out of her seat on the team bench….but I guess she’s got a good excuse.)

You can say this about a lot of Kingfisher players the last few years: On “normal” KHS teams (you know, those years that the Jackets were annually very good, but before they went into the next stratosphere), Birdwell would have been a standout weapon.

Had he not played with two Division I players during his career, his list of individual accolades would be long and impressive.

On top of his good size, Birdwell has outstanding athleticism.

His ability to get off the floor quickly isn’t common.

Once he did, he could, quite literally, shoot with either hand. You never knew with what hand or at what angle Birdwell was going to shoot it.

He also had excellent touch from the perimeter.

Such versatility made him so difficult to cover.

And I’ll say this about Birdwell: He could take a butt chewing.

He probably suffered the ire of Jared Reese more than any other player the last three years.

Reese had an expectation for Birdwell and if he felt his player wasn’t living up to it, he let him know about it.

And Birdwell took it. He took it, then went out and continued to play his game.

Nowadays, that’s almost a lost art. It’s the sign of a great kid.

Here’s another other thing about Birdwell: He’s going to graduate as a twotime state champ and fouryear letterman for a program that went 107-4…and down the road, that might be some of the least of his accomplishments.

When we publish our senior edition next month, you’ll see a list of honors for Birdwell that is not only extensive, but wide-ranging.

He’s the “All-American kid” if there ever was one… and one of those whose future is so bright, I can’t even contemplate where it will lead him.

During one of the aforementioned single-digit wins, a certain KHS freshman went diving head first off the court in an attempt to save a loose ball.

As he laid his body horizontal to the floor, he dove off the court before crashing back down to the hardwood.

Although not absolutely uncommon, this was a particularly astonishing play in the 2018 Ada-Kingfisher game.

That’s because just over two weeks prior, Matthew Stone was lying in a hospital bed, fresh off having an emergency appendectomy.

After missing three playoff games, Stone returned to practice on the Monday of the state tournament.

A few days later, he put his freshly-cut body on the line to try to help win a basketball game.

If ever a single play summed up Matthew Stone, that was the one.

It might take a while for us to truly appreciate the kind of player Stone was for Kingfisher High School.

Oh, he’s appreciated now; don’t get me wrong on that.

He scored more than 1,500 points in his career. His rebound totals were through the roof.

On top of that, Stone was an excellent passer. He’s probably on the short list of career assist leaders at Kingfisher. The very shortest of the lists.

But it wasn’t just incredible stats that made Stone a great player.

It was the things you can’t teach or coach that he possessed that set him apart:

– Tireless work ethic;

– Non-stop motor;

– Fierce competitor;

– Never took off a single play.

If Kingfisher High School played, Matthew Stone showed up physically, mentally and emotionally.

Every. Single. Night.

The only exception was when he was literally laid up in the hospital. Even then, I saw him in the gym the next week - a week after surgery - shooting baskets underneath the goal.

The word “great” is so overused these days. It’s tagged to so many undeserving subjects.

But Stone was a truly great high school basketball player.

When you combine the ability, the work ethic, the hustle, the drive to win, the stats, the results and all the winning, you just can’t deny it.

It just so happens that in his first two seasons, Stone played with a pair of other great players - Jett Sternberger and Trey Green - who were upperclassmen.

During his last two years, a teammate blossomed into a different creature.

But Stone was the steady - and sometimes spectacular - constant.

He could - and many times did - score 30 points.

He could - and many times did - grab 15 rebounds.

He could and did lead the team in assists and/or steals.

Then there were the jaw-dropping plays.

His passes to Bijan for an alley-oop slam.

Bijan’s passes to him for the same.

His steals and hustle down the floor that resulted in powerful finishes at the rim.

His relentless will to rebound the ball, giving himself or a teammate second chances to score.

The list goes on and on...

We got spoiled.

Stone and Bijan dunked so many times the last two seasons that it became almost mundane.

They made the great plays a nightly routine.

It just became expected…and Stone always delivered in some form or fashion.

And let us not ever - EVER - forget the 3-pointer he made before Ridenour’s big trey against Heritage Hall.

The Chargers had just gone up by eight points. Kingfisher was making nothing.

The championship game appeared destined to go Heritage Hall’s way.

Then Stone calmly sank a trey to pull KHS within five in what ultimately kickstarted Kingfisher’s run to the championship.

We’ll probably never see anything like Stone here again…at least not for another generation.

His combination of size, skill, determination and overall ability just don’t come along very often.

In the years to come, we’ll look back on these teams and realize just how fortunate we were to get to witness someone like Matthew Stone in a Yellowjacket uniform.

He’s different...

Sure, it was just a scrimmage.

But, man, was a message sent.

In the fall just before his junior season, Bijan Cortes and his Yellowjacket teammates were taking on Class 6A’s Broken Arrow in a scrimmage on the Indians’ home court.

Bijan had the ball near the half-court line and was defended by a lone BA player.

He moved the ball to his left hand, blew past the defender and headed to the middle of the lane.

About halfway down the lane, he took flight.

One poor Broken Arrow soul tried to get in his way.

Mistake.

Bijan came down with a furious one-hand dunk that, quite literally, made jaws drop.

Heritage Hall coach Chris Hamilton was in the audience. He came out of his seat.

Other players at the multi-team scrimmage jumped to their feet.

One BA player on the Indians’ bench put both hands over his face, shielding himself from the carnage that just took place on the court.

We called it “posterized” in my day. Now maybe they call it “IG’d” or “Twittered.”

Whatever you want to call it, it was definitely one of the most impressive dunks you’ll ever see by a high school kid - scrimmage or not.

That one play, which spread like wildfire on social media, set the tone for what was to come for the next two years.

It was the arrival of Bijan Cortes: The kid with the cool name, trademark mane and an unmatched game.

He’s different... Bijan had already arrived.

He was a two-year starter and had been a state runner-up and state champ.

Since his early days playing youth ball, one word that came to mind about Bijan was “different.”

He had tremendous handles with the ball.

He had a vision of the entire court that you can’t teach and very few people possess.

He had a great ability to deliver the ball and always on target.

He was just different than most. That showed in his first two seasons.

Bijan was able to create off the dribble for guys like Sternberger and Green and Stone. He led fast breaks and had a great ability to finish or find the open man.

Toward the end of his sophomore season, he also started to dip his toe in the dunk pool.

It seemed like once Bijan got that first real dunk notched on his belt, everyone was fair game.

He made a few highlight-reel slams in that 2019 season, but it was the dunk against Broken Arrow that announced the arrival of a beast of a basketball player.

The 2020 season was - without exaggeration - a series of unreal highlights between Bijan, Stone and their teammates.

Whether it was Bijan grabbing a one-handed steal, spinning away from a would-be thief, dribbling down and tossing to Stone for an alley-oop or Bijan just making some unreal shot that didn’t seem fathomable, Kingfisher made the spectacular a routine occurrence.

Even his 1,000th career point was astounding.

KHS was playing at Bethany during his junior campaign and had an inbounds play underneath its own basket.

Bijan started at the top of the key, caught a screen and left his feet to catch a pass from Stone before throwing down a two-handed dunk.

It was unreal…yet we’d seen it so much already.

Bijan just did things with the ball that nobody else could do.

He’s different. Look at the commentssection on his own social media pages when he posts a highlight here or there.

Those comments from his peers say “You’re different.”

Because he is.

The lone knock on Bijan early on was “not a great shooter.”

So he worked. During his junior season, Bijan made 50 percent of his 3-pointers (an unreal stat, by the way).

Scratch that knock from the list.

Bijan went from scoring a dozen points a game as a sophomore to averaging 22 as a junior. His rebounds, assist and steal totals also climbed.

Some of the stuff he did... well, we’ve just never seen it before.

You can’t describe it.

Bijan went from potential to legitimate big-time prospect.

He went from really good to great to unreal.

Again, he just did things that no other people could do.

And then he did it all over again.

Bijan’s senior season was a repeat of his junior campaign.

There was no senioritis. No letdown. No letting up.

In fact, one might even say some of Stone’s killer instinct found its way into Bijan’s body.

That 10-point win over Edmond North saw Bijan and Stone combine for 59 points and take over down the stretch.

Against 5A state champ Carl Albert, he scored 23 and provided big bucket after big bucket.

When the Jackets struggled against Blanchard in the opening round of the 4A state tournament, Bijan loaded the Jackets on his shoulders in the fourth quarter and carried them to victory.

Heritage Hall’s student section chanted “We want Bijan! We want Bijan!” after their team’s semifinal win.

He showed them in the finals that they, in fact, did not.

None of this is to take away from any other Jacket. I’ve tried to convey over the 20,000 or so words in this series that it’s been a true team effort every single step of the way.

Whether it was 2018 or 2019 or 2020 or this season, the contributions have come from many.

But the greatest teams take great individuals.

And Bijan was unlike any we’ve ever seen in a Kingfisher uniform. He was just different.

He was just different.

After photos and hugs and interviews and the now-famous pose with fans in the stands, the Kingfisher team had left the State Fair Arena floor and made its way to the locker room.

Two members - Chase Davis and Caden Kitchens - had to come running back to the bench area.

Apparently in all the craziness after the fact, they had forgotten their water bottles. You can’t soak everyone else in the locker room celebration without your water bottle. So they came running

So they came running back for their weaponry.

As he crossed my path on his way back to the locker room, Kitchens had a message:

“You’ve got two more years of this, Swish.”

Strong statement. As I said in the very first

As I said in the very first installment of this series, we’ll never see this again.

107-4 just won’t happen again, especially in 4A at a stand-alone community.

But that doesn’t mean Kingfisher has to disappear...and it won’t.

Kingfisher was good before Trevor Buckner and Marco Charqueño and Haynes Lafferty and Reece Lafferty and Trey Green and Jett Sternberger and this year’s group of seniors.

KHS had trips to the state tournament. It had state tournament wins.

It will have all that again now that they’re all gone.

It’s going to be a completely different look next year.

Davis and Kitchens. Mason Snider. Maddox Mecklenburg. Cash Slezickey. Xavier Ridenour. Jax Sternberger. Jud Birdwell. Noah Schaefer. Drake Friesen. Braxton Mecklenburg.

That’s the future for the next couple of years.

The guys can play. They beat some small-school state tournament teams over at Seiling.

They lost one JV game all year (Carl Albert). Lord knows they got some playing time in some of those blowouts.

Oh, and they’ve only been practicing against Maverick, Jarret, Ian, Stoney and Bijan every day in practice for the last couple of years.

You think that helps?

So, yeah, Kingfisher should be just fine.

On a personal note...

Due to COVID-19, the OSSAA did its best to ensure we had a state tournament this year.

The staff pulled it off and, man, did we need that as a community and state.

However, to do it safely, some restrictions had to be put in place.

Part of that was limiting press row as well as no floor seating with the exception of a small batch of chairs behind each goal.

There was a long list of rules on who could be where...and when.

And it was understandable.

Because Kingfisher let out of school for Kingfisher’s quarterfinal, I was able to take my daughter Maya to the game with me.

I also have a nephew who has a love of sports similar to mine.

We are the only males in a family sea of females, so I’ve felt bonded to him since his birth.

A student at Piedmont, he’s kept up with Kingfisher through his favorite uncle, but had never had the chance to see them play in person.

Due to Piedmont’s schedule, he, too, was able to go to the quarterfinal game with me.

Being a similar age, Maya and Braxton have been good friends growing up, so I knew they’d enjoy the game together.

Although they’re old enough to take care of themselves, I wasn’t going to send them into the rafters of State Fair Arena by themselves and I didn’t want to hand them off to another parent to worry about keeping up with...while also watching the game.

So, I did what any other parent with a press pass and two extra kids would do...I asked Van Shea Iven if there was any way they could sit on the floor behind the goal, which was against their stated rules.

“Absolutely,” he said. So I bought them tickets and they did.

And they loved it. Braxton thought he might be a curse through three quarters of that Blanchard game, but he was mesmerized by Bijan’s ability to take over in the fourth.

He loved it so much that he wanted to catch Kingfisher’s semifinal game as well.

The catch: His older sister plays for Piedmont, which was in the 5A state tournament in Tulsa. Piedmont played late

- LATE- Thursday night. Kingfisher had the “Breakfast at the Big House” game on Friday.

But he wanted to be back in OKC, so we made it happen.

I bought tickets.

He rode with his family to Tulsa, caught the late Piedmont victory and then caught a ride back to OKC with some family friends.

He got to OKC where Maya and I were staying at 1 a.m.

Again, they were thrilled to watch Kingfisher’s full arsenal on display against Classen SAS. They HAD to come back

They HAD to come back for the championship, they said.

But, first, Braxton had to make a third turnpike trip in less than 24 hours to see Piedmont’s semifinal, so I had to get him back to said family friends.

Before that happened, I had a quick story to finish for our website.

About that time, David Glover made his way over.

Now, I’m probably about to get Glover reprimanded and, by extension, myself, but I don’t care.

What he did meant something to me.

“Swish, did you buy them tickets to the game?”

I answered in the affirmative.

“You act like you don’t know anyone,” he said.

I told him that they had been kind enough to allow “my kids” to sit on the arena floor. I wasn’t going ask anymore of them.

I went back to writing. Glover went back to his seat. A couple minutes later,

A couple minutes later, I heard him call over Maya and Braxton to his table. They came back with

They came back with their very own floor passes and lanyards...

And smiles that would have lit up the arena floor even if they’d turned out all the lights. Glover made them feel as

Glover made them feel as special as anyone inside that gym with his gesture.

He also ensured I didn’t have to try to get tickets for them for Saturday’s game. (Although we were as

(Although we were assured it wouldn’t work up north, Braxton might have even used his pass to get into Piedmont’s semifinal game that night. He just walked in like he owned the place... wonder where he gets that.)

Anyway, after an hour or so, we headed out of the arena.

Braxton, as he looked at his floor pass, said: “So, this is what it feels like to be you all these years.”

Ha. Yeah, that’s it.

After his fourth trip on the turnpike, Braxton joined Maya and I for King fisher’s championship game on Saturday.

We walked past the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Kingfisher fans waiting to get in.

We did have passes, after all.

Then they got to watch the magic that was the state championship game. Up close and personal.

Up close and personal.

They got to witness history. In person. With me.

They loved it.

I’ll cherish it.

Thank you, Van Shea.

Thank you, Glover.

Thank you, OSSAA.

Thank you, Kingfisher.