Buck Ringgold: A fantastic week of state tournament basketball, especially on Championship Saturday

By Buck Ringgold I Photo by Carlos Flores

It's been over a week now since the state basketball tournaments wrapped up in the Oklahoma City area.

I'm finally at the point where I have fully recovered from what had been a busy week of going to games, writing stories and editing stories, while also tracking down games I wasn't able to get to. Then on top of that, the unpredictable roller-coaster weather we've had all winter had to rear its ugly head one more time, with snow blanketing the area on March 11, though the games went on.

However, the weather warmed up considerably the following day, March 12. And what a day it was, as it was Championship Saturday, both at State Fair Arena and Lloyd Noble Center in Norman.

It seemed a bit ironic that, in the first game I saw on Championship Saturday, it featured two teams I'm very familiar with in my previous job as a sportswriter in Fort Smith, Ark. LeFlore County rivals Pocola and Howe faced off for the Class 2A girls title.

I was in "The Big House" for Pocola's last state championship in 2008. You probably heard about that night, when the Lady Indians' Callie Slate launched a miracle shot for the ages, when Pocola beat Walters for the 2A title in a wild ending that saw eight points being scored in the last seven-tenths of a second.

Then, I was also there at "The Big House" to chronicle Howe's back-to-back 2A state championships in 2019 and again in 2021 (the 2020 tournament was canceled due to COVID-19, and had that been played, Howe had a very good chance to win it all that season, too).

And in another ironic twist, the coach who led Pocola to that 2008 championship, Mark McKenzie, retired right after that thrilling finish, only to come back out of retirement several years later and lead the Lady Indians to another state title.

It didn't come down to a shot at the final buzzer, though Pocola did beat the clock to end the third with a jumper. But hanging on to a three-point lead in the final seconds, the Lady Indians forced a turnover and drew a foul.

Freshman Allyssa Parker then sealed Pocola's win with a free throw, and the Lady Indians beat Howe for the second time this season, the other being in the finals of the LeFlore County Tournament in January.

When the state tournament pairings were announced earlier in the week, I had a big decision to make. The 4A girls title game and the 6A girls title game were going to be played simultaneously early Saturday afternoon, and as much as I wanted to see both games, I couldn't be in two places at one.

So I decided to go to the 6A championship. Which meant as soon as I finished getting postgame quotes from Pocola, I had to hightail it out of The Big House and head to Norman as Bixby and Edmond North dueled for the gold ball. I finally arrived at the Lloyd Noble Center in time for the second half to start.

And in retrospect, I ended up making the right choice.

Edmond North rallied from a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit to force overtime; then the Lady Huskies won it on a shot at the buzzer from Toni Papahronis, the eldest daughter of coach Pete Papahronis. It was the first state title for Edmond North's program.

Two days earlier, Pete Papahronis won his 300th career game as a coach in a quarterfinal win. But he said afterward he wouldn't really celebrate the milestone until he was able to get 302 on Championship Saturday. Needless to say, Papahronis will remember win number 302 much more than win 300.

The game I ended up missing out on to cover Edmond North-Bixby was the massively hyped showdown between defending 4A champion Tuttle and Classen SAS. But as it turned out, it was all Lady Comets from the get-go. Maybe it wasn't surprising that they won it, but the final score definitely was, 55-22.

I returned to The Big House for the final game of the night, the 3A girls championship between defending champion Jones and an upstart Idabel squad that had come in having won 24 straight ballgames.

Early on, it was all Lady Warriors, who scored the first eight points and 12 of the first 14. But then the Lady Longhorns, led by their impressive stable of guards, took over and ended up decisively snapping that long Idabel winning streak.

Jones has now won back-to-back 3A titles, and with no seniors on the roster, the Lady Longhorns are a good bet to get back next year and get a three-peat.

And thus, my busy week came to an end. But I couldn't have done it alone.

Big thanks to my colleagues, Nathan Aker and Ross Lovelace, for their assistance all last week. They, too, got to see some great games on Championship Saturday.

Nathan saw Tulsa Memorial's boys avenge their only loss by turning the tables on Del City for the 6A title, McAlester's girls hold off El Reno in the 5A championship and Edmond North's boys joining their female counterparts in winning it all in 6A.

Ross saw Kingfisher's boys win its third straight 4A championship and Dale's boys hold off Cashion for the 2A title behind a 37-point performance from senior Dayton Forsythe as well as Classen SAS beating Tuttle for the 4A girls gold ball. And he also saw a buzzer-beater, this from the hands of Millwood's Chance Davis, whose last-second shot lifted the Falcons to a 3A title.

I liked having both the 2A-4A tournaments and the 5A-6A tournaments being held in the same metropolitan area. Some didn't, and that's understandable. But it helped make all of our jobs that much easier to have it in the Oklahoma City metro as opposed to OKC and Tulsa, which was the case over the past several years.

It also gave me the opportunity to take advantage of a few eating places while in the area. For instance, I finally made it up to Okarche to try the fried chicken at Eischen's Bar. Yep, it was as good as advertised.

This being my first state tournament to cover for SBLive Oklahoma, it was also great to see a bunch of new teams, new players and new coaches I never had the chance to watch before. Even the teams which fell short of winning the gold ball had some outstanding players and were well-coached, and it was a treat to see them lay it all on the line to have the chance to attempt to make it to Championship Saturday.

I'm already thinking about next year's state basketball tournaments, and hoping that we get to see some more outstanding teams and fantastic finishes.

There will also be something new to see next year, at least in Oklahoma City, as construction for a new State Fair Arena should already be under way, which is being built next to the current one. The plan is to have the new arena ready for the 2025 postseason, so next year should be the second-to-last at the current incarnation of The Big House as we know it.

Speaking of which, it was also the first year to have the 2A through 4A tournaments expanded to five days to where each team had the chance to play at least one game at State Fair Arena. To be honest, that's the way it should be, because over the years, teams that punched tickets to state claimed they were headed to "The Big House," only to end up playing games at sub-sites like Carl Albert, Yukon and Edmond Santa Fe and losing; thus also losing out on the true "Big House" experience.

So these next couple of seasons at State Fair Arena will be something to savor for all involved. I can't wait to see what the new "Big House" will look like, but like many, wonder if the atmosphere will be replicated in the new building.

Writing a column like this makes me ready to hit the road next basketball postseason and do this all over again, see some more teams and eat at a few more different places. But let's hope we're able to avoid inclement weather this time around.