Scotland men’s basketball smaller but experienced heading into first season without Cousar

LAURINBURG — Lamonte Cousar is one of the best forwards to ever play for Scotland men’s basketball, leading the team in scoring the last three years.

Now, the Fighting Scots will go into this season with him and his brother, Lamontez Cousar, graduated and forward Carter Revelle now at Eastern Randolph after he transferred there during the offseason, leaving the team with just one forward of at least 6-foot-4 that played last season — senior Jon Graham.

“You can’t replace Lamonte (Cousar),” Scotland head coach Michael Malpass said. “I don’t think we have (only) one guy that’ll fill that role this year; I think it’ll be a team effort there. It’s going to come down to being very efficient in our system and it’s going to have to be collectively done for us to replace that kind of output he gave at certain times.

“I think we’re going to play a little differently because we’re not going to have the size, but I think we’ll have a little more team speed. And I think we’ll also be able to utilize our four-man in more broad situations now.”

While the Scots lack size, it doesn’t mean they have none. Along with Graham, junior forward Zion Morrison — a JV player for the Scots last year — and senior transfer wing Dylan Lampley all stand at 6-foot-4.

Lampley played for Richmond last season, averaging 3.2 points and 3.3 rebounds in 25 games, according to MaxPreps.

“I think it helps to bring a winner into a winning program,” Malpass said on Lampley. “The guys have embraced him, and he’s a great kid, so they all love each other. The culture and the camaraderie have been really good so far.”

“I feel like we’re going to have a really good team,” Lampley said. “I feel like with this team, we’re going to be able to shoot better, get the ball out faster. Last year’s team, they were bigger, so they weren’t as fast as we are this year. So I feel like we should be able to get the ball, beat teams on the fast breaks and things like that.”

Scotland finished last season 19-9 and 10-4 in the Sandhills Athletic Conference and will look to post back-to-back winning seasons for the first time in over 20 years by benefiting from a more balanced offensive attack.

“I think last year, everybody knew Lamonte was going to score 20 or 30 (points), so they targeted him,” Malpass said. “And there were times where he had to go through double teams, and he had to deal with boxing one, jump defenses, (that) type (of) stuff, whereas this year, I don’t know that you really have that one guy to focus on. So, I think that sometimes makes for a really good team when you’ve got five guys that can score ten points … and I think that’s kind of how we’ll make up for where we were last year.”

Three players that started last season return for the Scots in Graham (2.7 points, 5.3 rebounds, 1.7 blocks last season) and senior guards Tashad Russell (did not play last season) and Jaiquez Caldwell (9.0 points, 3.9 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 2.3 steals). Russell will look to replicate the role of guard Isaac Ferguson, who graduated after putting up 14.4 points, 4.5 rebounds, 3.1 assists, and 2.4 steals per game last season.

“That makes you feel better to at least have three guys that are pretty familiar with what you do and who you are and how you go about creating culture,” Malpass said. “So. we feel good there.”

Depth-wise, Scotland brings up junior guards Dajuan Gibson and Brady Fowler and wings, sophomore Shylan Harrell and juniors Quatavius Everette and Ji’San McPhatter, from the JV team and adds junior wing Dakota Quick-Smith, playing in his first season for Scotland.

“We’ll be able to play fast in spurts. I don’t know that we’ll be deep, so we won’t be able to play fast all the time like I would have hoped,” Malpass said. “We’ll have to calibrate that back a little bit and throw out different looks. But hopefully, we can spread it out and get a good chunk from a lot of different people. I think this will be a well-balanced team.”

“With the coaches, we have a lot of leadership, but we’ve got to have players step up, like me, Quez (Caldwell), and Tashad; we’ve got to step up and be leaders on the court for the younger guys,” Lampley said.

And despite a much different-looking Scotland team, the expectations remain the same: win and contend.

“I think among the 3A ranks, we have a great chance to be a solid contender,” Malpass said. “In our conference, there are a lot of great coaches, a lot of great teams. Richmond is obviously going to be very good again, but I think we’ve got a chance to be right there again.”

“Overall, I think we can make it pretty far,” Lampley said. “I think we can compete for the conference championship.”

The 2023-24 season and SAC play open for Scotland on Thursday at Hoke County.