Olentangy Liberty boys basketball rides team chemistry into district semifinals

COLUMBUS, OH – Shortly after beating 29th-seeded Lancaster 72-30 on February 24th in the second round of the Division I district tournament, the Olentangy Liberty boys basketball team grabbed a loose net and headed out to center court for a team picture.

The Patriots weren’t celebrating what had just happened considering they hope they'll have much bigger games to come, but this gave them a chance to acknowledge properly what had taken place two weeks prior when they wrapped up the OCC-Central Division championship during a road game.

The camaraderie they showed while laughing together that night might be the only obvious evidence regarding why they've achieved so much this winter.

With no players averaging even 12 points and with no true go-to player as in past years, nothing statistically backs up why Liberty earned the second seed for the district tournament and is 20-3.

Team chemistry, needless to say, isn’t just a cliché to the Patriots.

“The most important thing is not just (our bond) on the court but off the court,” senior point guard Alex Okuley said. “We have the best brotherhood that I’ve ever been a part of on a team. We’ve all been friends for our entire lives and you can see it on the court. We’re just a team that plays together.”

Liberty will look for a third win this season over Dublin Coffman when it faces the 17th-seeded Shamrocks on March 1 in a district semifinal at Jonathan Alder. The winner will play sixth-seeded Gahanna Lincoln or No. 11 Newark on March 4 in a district final at Ohio Dominican.

The Patriots have become a consistent power under 15th-year head coach Greg Nossaman, who has more than 400 career victories including 238 at Liberty, but the formula for success was different in past recent seasons.

In 2018-19, Ben Roderick led Liberty to a 24-5 finish and the program’s first state semifinal, earning district Player of the Year honors and closing his prep career as Liberty’s all-time leader in points with 1,817.

Then with Henry Hinkle leading the way, Liberty went 18-7 and shared the league title in 2019-20 and finished 20-6 and reached a regional semifinal in 2020-21.

Cooper Davis, who now plays for Toledo, averaged 19 points last season when the Patriots went 14-11 but won the OCC-Central and took eventual state champion Pickerington Central to the brink before losing 54-49 in a district final.

There were four other key players lost to graduation, setting Liberty up for a rebuilding season which did not come to pass.

“We (won 14 games) last season and Okuley was the only one who played a lot who is back,” Nossaman said. “The other guys played (for the junior varsity). Last year when we subbed, our bench wasn’t very long, but if we did we maybe lost some scoring or defense. We noticed in the summer that we played eight or nine guys who were able to rotate in and we were not really losing anything when we subbed.

“These guys are not great basketball players, but they play hard and they play together and that can keep you in a lot of games. They played (for the Olentangy youth program) together all the way up through and we’ve got three juniors and a sophomore that mix in.”

The player with the most college potential likely is 6-foot-8 sophomore forward Tyler Kropp, who missed the season’s first 11 games because of an injury and averages about four rebounds per game but “isn’t close to 100 percent” according to Nossaman.

Leading a six-member senior class is guard/forward James Hummell, who averages 11.2 points, followed by Okuley (10.4 ppg), forward/center Jackson Mikola (9.1 ppg) and guard Matt Wilson (9.0 ppg).

In the win over Lancaster, Wilson scored 16 points, senior guard Nick Metzger scored 14 and Mikola had 10 to lead the way.

The other senior is backup guard Daniel Gies and junior guards J.R. Hocutt, Landon Johnson and Evan Nelson also have contributed.

Liberty has won five league titles and three district titles under Nossaman, who is in his 37th season overall coaching the sport.

“They don’t care who scores,” Nossaman said. “There’s a lot of animosity with some teams where (individuals say) I’m not getting mine and I’ve got to get my 16, but we’ve had five different leading scorers throughout the year. That’s just the makeup of our team. We’ve won a lot of close games and sometimes it comes down to the last minute or two and we get the ball to the right person and they score. "We were the No. 2 seed out of 49 teams, which kind of surprised me but when you go into the draw at 18-2, we had the best record and we won the league and I think it’s the best league in the area from bottom to top. We’ve got good kids, good families, they play hard and they get good grades.”

Okuley’s brother, 2019 graduate Mitchell Okuley, plays baseball for Ohio State and competed for the boys basketball program for three seasons.

Metzger’s brother, Jack Metzger, and Wilson’s brother, Grant Wilson, also were 2019 graduates who played for the boys basketball team.

Liberty opened with a 59-52 loss November 26th to Kettering Alter, which is in a Division II district final, but won its next 11 games before falling 56-51 to Dublin Jerome on January 10th.

After putting together an eight-game winning streak, the Patriots lost to Olentangy Orange 56-50 on February 17th in their regular-season finale.

Liberty and Orange would meet in a regional semifinal if both win district titles.

“Ball movement has been a key part of our success,” Hummell said. “We just play well together. We all grew up together playing in our childhood. (Nossaman) gets on us every day, but it helps us in a good way. He’s experienced.”