Little Rock Mills off to sizzling 17-1 hoops start behind experience and depth
BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON
Under long-time head coach Raymond Cooper, Little Rock Mills has been a traditional high school basketball power in Arkansas and it doesn’t look like that is changing this season.
The Comets (17-1) are off to a sizzling start and will take a 10-game winning streak into Friday night’s home game with Jacksonville (3-9).
Mills, who was 26-10 last season and returned virtually its whole squad, is coming off a 68-39 rout of Russellville to wrap up the 2024 portion of this year’s slate.
“We only lost one guy from last year’s team – just one senior,” Cooper said. “The experience level has helped a lot as these guys played a whole lot of games last year. The communication is a lot better and we are sharing the ball and taking good shots.”
Cooper, who has won three state titles since making the move from North Pulaski to Mills in 2011, notes that he is blessed to have a versatile, nine-player rotation.
“The depth has been one of our strengths, too,” Cooper said. “We have nine guys who played a lot of minutes last year back so we are able to play different line ups and different match ups and that’s been a really big help this year.”
Cooper stresses there is a culture in place at Mills and it is one that is cultivated with the veterans mentoring the youngsters.
“That’s one of the thing that we really talk about and have systems in place to make sure that is passed down,” Cooper said. “We pair seniors with younger kids so they can pass on different practices and mindsets to them. We really, really spend a lot of time on that.”
Anthony Hester had 23 points to lead the Comets over Russellville while Joseph Bell added 15, Zaylin Rowland 11 and Marshall Wells 10 in the Hoops for Hunger Classic.
“Another one of our strengths as a team this year is we have balanced scoring and we have been blessed to have some guys who can really put the ball in the hole,” Cooper said. “That makes it tough on other teams because we come at your so many different ways.”
Mills, who shared the 2020 Class 4A state title due to covid and won the 2021 crown, will compete in a new Class 4A Region 5 conference that also includes ESTEM, Little Rock Hall, Malvern, Magnolia and Forrest City.
“It’s a new league, at least new to us,” Cooper said. “We’ll be in there with ESTEM, who always plays us tough. Hall has a pretty good team and the other teams will be ones that we have never played before.
“I think we are rallying into shape heading into conference play so I feel good about where we are.”
That’s after playing a non-conference slate that has featured Conway, Bryant, Little Rock Central, Pine Bluff, White Hall and Benton, which handed the Comets their lone loss 64-49 on Nov. 30.
“I like to play tough games early because we find out where we are real quick,” Cooper said. “We played some really, really good teams and handled the schedule.
“We played 11 games in 14 days at one point. It was a really tough stretch, but they battled through it and was able to come out with some wins.”
Cooper is hoping his team can get to a standard each night on both offense and defense.
“The biggest thing is consistency,” Cooper said. “Some times we look really, really good and some times we look like ‘who is this?’ “We have just got to be more consistently on both ends really just by being more focused and not having lapses because we do have lapses sometimes.”
Photo courtesy of Little Rock Mills
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