In the end, all it is is a story of what could have been.
That’s the realistic take from Putnam Science Academy girls’ Prep Black coach Devin Hill, whose team faced starts and stops, travel bans, transfers, and injuries, all of which combined to derail what he expected to be a very special year.
“I thought we had the best team in the country,” Hill said this week after his team’s truncated season concluded March 15 with seven wins in eight games. “I just didn’t say anything because there was no need to say anything. We were going to play. I was looking forward to playing certain teams just to show that. And now all it is is a memory basically.”
The biggest domino to fall, as it did for so may teams, was the state mandate essentially banning teams from traveling to play out-of-state opponents. That led to the Mustangs pulling out of a couple of big events in Florida, which just threw everything out of whack, Hill said. A couple of key players transferred out because they took the opportunity to play at a school in the South that was able to play games. Some new players transferred in to fill in the spots. And then there were all the injuries. Hill said the coaches anticipated at the start of the season that minutes-distribution was going to be interesting because his team was so deep; by the end, PSA only had seven players available.
“At the end of the day, we were still able to do more than some teams and play some,” Hill said. “But as far as hitting any type of goals we had, it just wasn’t realistic. It could have been special, I really think that. But we’ve got to move on. And we have.”
Once the goal of playing for a national championship went by the wayside, the focus really shifted to individual development, but still within the team concept.
“I talked to them about margin of error,” Hill said, “and how each time another player wasn’t available, it changed the equation as far as the number of mistakes we can make and get away with, and how it upped the focus that we needed to play with. So the goal was to still be who we were, even without certain players. You’re not giving in, you’re not laying down. You’re still playing with the same confidence you would have if we had the original team.”
The season’s high point, at least in terms of individual performance, came in the team’s second game. That was when senior Yamani McCollough scored her 1,000th career point on a 3-pointer from the corner early in the second half. Ciara Bailey, a postgrad headed to Towson in the fall, put up some big numbers. Jada Mills, a member of the Class of 2023, put her all-around talents on display in a handful of games. So the season wasn’t a complete wash.
“I had it exactly how I wanted it. Not just for this year but for next year too,” Hill said. “It’s hard to find players that you know won’t be scared, that you know have been-there-done-that. So that’s the step back this year, only because we didn’t play enough big games for me to really know who I can count on next year. That’s the frustrating thing. You want to go through a year, even if you’re young and lose, that you can say, ‘OK I know who’s who and what’s what.’ We never really got that chance. That’s just how this season was, and it is what it is. We expect to have a lot of these girls back, we’ll add some more of course.
“And the hope is that we’ll see the whole season through.”
Stephen Nalbandian
Sports Information Director
Putnam Science Academy

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There were plenty of options and plenty of rooting interests for Tom Espinosa as the NCAA Tournament kicked off March 19.
That’s because Espinosa, the Putnam Science Academy boys’ prep coach, had 12 former players involved in the tournament. Ten of them were expected to see some minutes; of the remaining two — one just joined the team in January and had yet to play, and the other was part of a coaching staff.
“It’s exciting, for the kids especially,” Espinosa said. “They’re the ones playing in the NCAA Tournament, March Madness, all that. But it is certainly exciting for us here too, and for me personally for sure. A lot of these kids were special players here and had a lot to do with what we’ve become. But it’s really cool to see so many of them getting this chance.”
Tyson Etienne and Wichita State played in a First Four game March 18. Etienne did not have a good game, scoring just one point in 27 minutes, as the Shockers lost 53-52 to Drake, which got nine huge points and 10 rebounds from Darnell Brodie. Drake’s run ended in its next game, a loss to USC, in which Brodie had six points and seven rebounds.
Josh Gray and LSU knocked off Kyle Lofton, Osun Osunniyi, and St. Bonaventure in the first round. Lofton had 10 points and five assists, Osunniyi finished with 15 points and nine rebounds in the 76-61 loss. Gray played just one minute and did not score. LSU played its second-round game Monday night against No. 1 Michigan.
Akok Akok didn’t play in UConn’s opening-round loss to Eric Ayala’s Maryland Terrapins. Ayala had a huge game however, scoring a game-high 23 points. Maryland faced No. 2 Alabama Monday night. (UConn graduate assistant coach Mamadou Diarra is a PSA alum.)
Vlad Goldin did not play in either of Texas Tech’s games, a first-round win followed by a second-round loss. Gabe McGlothan had 13 points and seven rebounds as No. 15 Grand Canyon’s bid to upset No. 2 Iowa fell short. And Abou Ousmane had four points in 16 minutes as North Texas, a 13-seed, upset No. 4 Purdue in the first round. He played just one minute in the team’s second-round loss to Villanova. Sean Durugordon, who joined Missouri in January after playing for PSA in the fall, did not play in the Tigers’ opening-round loss to Oklahoma.
Stephen Nalbandian
Sports Information Director
Putnam Science Academy

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