‘Our teammate, our coach, our best friend.’ State title caps magical 1st year at the helm for Tualatin’s Bubba Lemon

“He’s a great coach with a lot of energy. He always knows what to do when there’s pressure.”

Author:
Dan Brood
Publish date:
Mar 21, 2023 9:15 AM EDT

By Dan Brood | Photos by Naji Saker

A little more than a year ago, Brandon “Bubba” Lemon enjoyed what could easily be called a magical week.

His wife, Amanda Setzer Lemon, gave birth to the couple’s first child, a daughter named Mychaiah. Four days later, Bubba Lemon, as an assistant coach, helped lead the Tualatin boys basketball team to a 66-49 win over Summit in the Class 6A state championship game, giving the Timberwolves their first state title.

“This is a very special week for me. I had a baby this week, for the first time,” Lemon said March 12, 2022. “People told me I got four wins this week.”

A year later, things are still magical for Lemon — maybe even more so.

His daughter is a happy 1-year-old who could be seen giggling as she ran from mom to dad by the baseline before Tualatin’s 67-63 win over rival Tigard in a Class 6A state playoff second-round game at Tualatin High School.

The following week, Lemon helped guide the Timberwolves to another state title with their 60-47 win over top-seeded West Linn in the Class 6A championship game played in front of a capacity crowd at the University of Portland’s Chiles Center. This time, Lemon served as Tualatin’s head coach in the title tilt, marking, yes, a magical finish to the season for Lemon is his first year as the leader of Tualatin’s wolf pack.

“It means everything,” Lemon said in a back hallway at the Chiles Center, holding a bag of wet clothes following a wild victory celebration in the Tualatin locker room. “There’s been so much support. I thank God. He put me in a good spot, with good people. I’ve had so much support — work, home, these guys at Tualatin. The guys are just amazing. They made my job easy sometimes. They’re phenomenal basketball players.”

West Linn Tualatin 6A Oregon boys basketball final Naji Saker 1 -250

Lemon, while smiling, also was sporting a look of fatigue that night around 11 p.m. — with good reason.

“The funny part is, I was talking to someone earlier, and they were asking, ‘What was your sleep like last night?’” Lemon said. “And I said, ‘I slept for two or three hours. I watched more film, and then I had to throw my baby her first birthday party today.’”

Yeah, it certainly seems like it was a magical day to finish a magical year.

But it was a year that also had its share of question marks.

Todd Jukkala, Tualatin’s head coach in the 2021-22 championship season, resigned from the post in May. Lemon, who was the junior varsity coach at Tualatin, was hired as the Timberwolves’ new head coach in early June.

The Tualatin basketball program has always seemed to look to build on the accomplishments, hard work and dedication of past players and coaches. That is something Lemon likely knew all about.

Lemon, a 2006 Tualatin graduate and the grandson of former Harlem Globetrotters star Meadowlark Lemon, was a standout football and basketball player for the Timberwolves, and he played baseball at the school. Lemon was part of the Tualatin basketball coaching staff for six years before getting the head post.

West Linn Tualatin 6A Oregon boys basketball final Naji Saker 1 -55

Still, it certainly wasn’t an easy position to step into — taking over as coach of the defending state champions, with high expectations, at a high-profile school, without many returning varsity players.

How would the players accept, and react to, Lemon as their new head coach?

Tualatin junior guard AJ Noland, for one, wasn’t worried.

“A lot of people weren’t sure what he had,” Noland said. “I had him as my JV coach last year, so I knew what he had and how he knew how to control a game. I knew he would step into place, and it would be like nothing ever changed.”

“Yeah, we gave him our trust,” Tualatin junior wing Jaden Steppe said. “I’ll admit, we were a little reluctant at the start, but he was like, ‘This is what we want to do,’ and when we did that, we started winning.”

They sure did.

Tualatin, which returned only one starter, senior guard Josiah Lake, from the 2022 state championship team, went 19-5 in the regular season, finishing second in the Three Rivers League standings, behind West Linn, at 8-2.

West Linn Tualatin 6A Oregon boys basketball final Naji Saker 1 -245

In the state playoffs, the Timberwolves rallied from a 17-point deficit to get a 71-65 first-round win over Roosevelt. Tualatin followed with the victory over Tigard, putting the Timberwolves in the Class 6A state tournament. It was at that point that a repeat championship had become a realistic goal for the Tualatin team, even with West Linn in the tournament field.

But Lemon made sure his team didn’t look that far ahead.

“Our guys did a really good job of just taking it one game at a time,” he said. “They didn’t look forward. We went straight at Beaverton (a 63-54 quarterfinal victory) first, then going into Barlow (a 68-55 semifinal win). The guys didn’t get too far ahead of themselves.”

Those two tournament victories put the Timberwolves in the title game, where they were to take on West Linn — a team they lost to three times during the regular season

Despite the three previous setbacks, Tualatin seemed to boast an air of confidence entering the final. That showed, as the Timberwolves jumped out to a 12-1 first-quarter lead on their way to getting the victory.

That victory capped Lemon’s hectic first year as a head coach.

“This was fun. It was a lot of hard work,” he said “There were a lot of ups and downs. There were stressful moments, and I told people that I’m close to that I remember losing to those guys (West Linn) in the (Les Schwab Invitational in late December at Liberty High School in Hillsboro) and I said, ‘We’re not even close to where we’re going to finish this year. We’re on our way up.’ Not too many teams peak at the (state) tournament, but we peaked at the right point. I thought we played all of our best ball now.”

West Linn Tualatin 6A Oregon boys basketball final Naji Saker 1 -240

A reason for that, Tualatin players say, was Lemon.

“He meant a lot,” Steppe said. “He was our teammate, he was our coach, he was our best friend. That’s one of the reasons we won.”

“He’s a great coach with a lot of energy,” said Tualatin senior guard Trask Veek-Petersen, who was in his first year in the program after transferring from West Linn. “He always knows what to do when there’s pressure. It was a fun year and I really liked playing for him.”

“He meant a lot,” Tualatin senior wing Jack Wagner said. “He was in the program. He knew what we needed to do. We had pretty much a brand-new team, and he rebuilt that starting lineup.”

“He’s a great coach,” Lake said. “He made adjustments, (assistant coach Tom) Duggan made adjustments, the whole coaching staff did. I really want to thank them.”

The Tualatin boys basketball coaching staff includes Duggan, Ryan Allen, Wade Moyer and Nathan Platter.

—