By Mike London

Salisbury Post

SALISBURY — Myles Smith wasn’t just consistent, he was consistently brilliant.

The Salisbury senior is the Scooter Sherrill Award winner for 2024-25, the Rowan County Boys Basketball Player of the Year, after a season in which he topped 20 points in 24 of the Hornets’ 30 games. His season high of 31 came in a playoff game against Pine Lake Prep.

The Scooter Sherrill Award winner is selected by a committee of former Rowan County athletes that includes Tristan Rankin, Dr. Darren Ramsey and Reggie McConneaughey.

Smith’s season included tourney MVP honors in the Dale’s Sporting Goods Sam Moir Christmas Classic where he led a title-game comeback victory against Carson. He posted a 25.5 scoring average in four 2A state playoff games. He averaged 24.5 points in four spirited games with North Rowan.

Smith’s 692-point senior season — 23.1 points per game — as a one-and-done Hornet ranks ninth on the county’s all-time single-season scoring list. Salisbury superstars Juke Harris, Bobby Phillips, Shamari Spears and Bobby Jackson accounted for five bigger scoring seasons. The other three were turned in by West Rowan’s Sherrill, for whom the Player of the Year Award is named.

“Myles could have scored a lot more,” said Salisbury head coach Albert Perkins, who mercifully sat Smith down early in the Hornets’ frequent romps. “But Myles recognized there were nights when he didn’t need to score big for us to win.”

Smith transferred to Salisbury for his senior year — he joined younger brother Blake Smith on the squad — after three seasons at Victory Christian Center, a high-powered Charlotte private school.

“We played a really elite private school schedule, so the adjustment to basketball at a public school was not difficult at all,” Smith said. “We played some very good teams this season and we had challenging games — all the North Rowan games were fun and intense — but most nights the talent level was quite a bit lower than what I had gotten used to facing at Victory Christian. The challenge for me and for our team a lot of nights was not to get lazy. Our coaches were good about keeping us focused and playing hard no matter what the scoreboard said.”

The scoreboard almost always said good things for the Hornets, who had a 25-game winning streak. They went 26-4 this season after going 27-4 in 2023-24 when they still had Harris, who got a lot of playing time for Wake Forest as a freshman.

Harris was a gifted player, the all-time producer of points in county history, but the Hornets’ team scoring this season dipped only slightly, from 81 points per game to 78. Salisbury compensated for a bit less offense by getting even stingier defensively. Points allowed by the Hornets dropped from 53 per game to 50.

Both of those teams had a plus-28 points differential.

“A lot of people may not know this, but my main role at Victory Christian was as a lock-down defender,” Smith said. “But I worked hard on my shooting over the summer and was well prepared to take on more of a scoring role with Salisbury. I thought what I did best offensively was attack. I got downhill a lot. I can play above the rim, but I also had confidence that I could make shots with range.”

He was one of the best dunkers of the century in the county, while shooting solid percentages from the foul line, the 3-point line and from mid-range.

The 6-foot-3 wing player, who also was Central Carolina Conference Player of the Year and first team All-District, hasn’t committed to a college yet, although he said the number of offers he’s weighing is up to six or seven. He hopes to make an announcement soon as far as his future plans.

“Myles was a great player, a great teammate, just an outstanding young man.” Perkins said. “I know there had to be adjustments for him coming from Victory Christian to Salisbury as a senior, but he always blended in. On the court he blended in with his teammates, and when I’d see him walking down the halls to class, he blended in with our student body.”