Men end regular season 19-4, earn #2 seed in conference tournament
Panther men’s hoops have reached the postseason on a hot streak.
On the week of Feb. 3 the team faced the end of their regular season, including conference matchups with Smoky Mountain and West Henderson. With three more wins they extended their streak to six straight, improving to 19-4 ahead of the Mountain Seven Tournament.
On Tuesday the team hosted Smoky at Tom Raby Court on Senior Night. In a rematch of their three-point win in Sylva last month, Franklin started the game with an all-senior lineup, including Max McClure, Noah Brannon, Braylen Dezarn, Brennan Cabe and Tristan Gibbs.
Franklin’s shooters were red-hot out of the gate, sinking a whopping eight 3-pointers in the first including three from Will Rauers. McClure and Dezarn added eight points apiece to end the quarter up 31-20. The period was the team’s second 30-point quarter in three weeks, having also scored 31 in the first at Hayesville Jan. 16.
Rauers harassed Smoky on defense in the second, posting three steals in its first three minutes. Jack Teesateskie added eight points on offense to end the half up 52-32.
The second half started in much the same way as the first, with Franklin racking up seven steals and four 3-pointers. The Panthers ended the quarter up 33 en route to an 88-57 win.
The next night the team returned to Tom Raby Court for a clash with Swain. Before tipoff school officials honored longtime head coach Doug Plemmons for his 600th career coaching win, which he recorded at North Henderson Jan. 31. Plemmons graduated from Swain in 1977 and is enshrined in the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame. He later coached the Maroon Devils’ JV team.
There Teesateskie came out firing in the first, racking up 11 points, three steals and one assist. Rauers added a trio of 3-pointers to end the quarter up 27-10.
Franklin’s defense held firm into the second, posting six steals including two from Aaron Bravo. Brannon turned two of Swain’s turnovers into slam dunks to end the half up 56-16. Franklin added six more steals from there to win 86-28.
Two nights later the team traveled to West for their last game of the regular season. Having beaten the Falcons by 24 points last month, the Panthers were slow to heat up, trailing 8-2 four minutes in. They soon flipped the switch however, sinking three 3-pointers to end the quarter tied at 13.
Franklin’s offense kept rolling in the second, getting 10 points apiece from Teesateskie and McClure. Teesateskie and Lance Parker added two steals apiece to end the half up 36-21.
Teesateskie stayed hot into the third, posting 12 more points to put his team up 25. Parker added five, a steal and one assist in the fourth to win 73-43.
With 30-point wins over West and Smoky, the Panthers ended the year 10-2 in the conference, good for second place behind 24-0 (12-0) East Henderson. Franklin will host the #7 seed, either West or Tuscola, on Valentine’s Day in Round 1 of the Mountain Seven Tournament. The Panthers ended their regular season as the 4th-ranked team in the 3A West, one spot ahead of East through strength of schedule.
After Wednesday’s game several friends threw Plemmons a small party in the home men’s locker room, celebrating his now 602 career wins (105 in five years at the former Cullowhee High School, 94 in five years at Smoky Mountain and 403 in two separate stints at Franklin, from 1993-2009 and from 2017 to the present). After collecting his thoughts, he was quick to deflect credit for the mammoth achievement.
“Obviously, I’m proud of the accomplishment,” said Plemmons. “I talk to the kids a lot about individual awards, whether it be articles in the paper or making an all-tournament team or all-conference team. When I talk to them about that it’s usually directed and trying to make them understand that even though the award comes to the individual player, or coach in this case, it’s still a reflection of the teams that have played for me. I’ve been very fortunate to have very good players down through the years – players that were willing to accept coaching and were willing to put the time and the effort into becoming not only good individual players, but developing and meshing into a team.”
In 34 years as a varsity head coach and 39 overall, including six 20-win seasons and five conference titles for Franklin, Plemmons credited his success to players and assistants too numerous to name. Before Wednesday’s game, at which he was gifted a wrestling-style belt with the number 600, many former players and coaches made a point to congratulate him.
“I saw a few people. My old high school coach [Joe Myers], I didn’t see him, but I saw his [sister-in-law] … and she told me that he sent his congratulations and that he had obviously been following my career,” said Plemmons. “I’ve only seen him a couple of times since I graduated from high school, but he lives in Florida and had been keeping up with all the stuff that was going on through his brother, who still lives in Bryson City. I had another player, one of my former players from Cullowhee, showed up last night unexpectedly, and so we got to share some stories and reminisce a little bit. It’s been fun over the last few days. I’ve gotten a lot of nice texts and phone calls and those types of things, and I’m just humbled by the outreach from people.”
Nearly 50 years after his playing days at Swain, Wednesday’s ceremony was a fitting reunion for Plemmons. The coach also recorded his 286th win for Franklin, surpassing Tom Raby for the most in Panther history, over the Maroon Devils in 2018.
In earning his 600th win, Plemmons joins elite company in the history of high school basketball in the state. The N.C. Basketball Coaches’ Association lists just 15 coaches that have ever surpassed the mark, including two (Butch Smart, Highlands; Rick Wood, West Henderson and Edneyville) from its 11 westernmost counties and just one (Wood) who spent his entire career in North Carolina. After 39 years the longtime skipper shows no signs of slowing, which he credits to a true passion for the game, his players and fellow coaches.
“Lots of people search and search to find their purpose in life – their meaning, their calling,” he said. “I either found my calling, or my calling found me – I’m not sure which one is which. I definitely get up every morning excited to go to work because this is what I grew up with as a player and then transitioned it into a coaching job, and it’s just been a great ride.”