By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

MOUNT ULLA — West Rowan head boys basketball coach Dadrian Cuthbertson has been enjoying one of the quieter summers of his life.

The long-time AAU coach spent decades helping mold Rowan County’s young athletes into better basketball players and better young men, but he’s taken a step back from the AAU circuit now. He got some rest this summer, recharged his batteries.

Cuthbertson said it also was a relatively quiet summer for most of the Falcons. West didn’t do the team camp tour and didn’t compete as a team in major summer events as North Rowan and Salisbury did.

“We don’t have a lot of returners,” Cuthbertson said. “We had some open gyms, so the guys could come in and get a lot of shots up, but we just don’t have big varsity numbers right now. It was tough to get everyone together at one time, so we’d have about six guys in the gym. Evan Kennedy had football camps. Brant Graham was busy with (American Legion) baseball and football.”

West was 12-13 last season, a struggle for a proud program that could be attributed mostly to the depth of the South Piedmont Conference, which fielded seven solid teams. The Falcons went a respectable 8-8 in the SPC. That included two automatic losses to 3A state champ Central Cabarrus.

The highlights of West’s 2023-24 season were the three wins against a good Carson team. West played its best against the Cougars, and the Falcons’ muscle and experience made the difference in three tight games.

Three athletes who scored a lot of points for West in those Carson games — smooth shooter Will Givens and scrappers Elijah Holmes and Kayvone Norman — were seniors, so the Falcons are going to have some new faces playing a lot of minutes.

To be competitive in a county where Salisbury, North Rowan and Carson are expecting to be really good, Cuthbertson is counting on a big jump from two players who came off the bench last season. That’s Ja’Mih Tucker and Josiah Young. Those two are rising juniors.

Tucker is a pure point guard, a pass-first penetrator who can score when needed. He had a breakout AAU summer.

Young is long and lean and keeps growing. Cuthbertson said he’s at least 6-foot-6 now. Maybe 6-foot-7.

That duo should give the Falcons two critical elements — a point guard and a post man.

Kennedy is football-first, but he’s about as athletic as anyone in the county and could have a huge senior basketball season. Graham, a rising junior who has been a key player since his freshman year, gives the Falcons one of the county’s best shooters, and he’s rangy enough to shoot it over most people.

Romir Hairston, a rising senior who has played a lot of energetic minutes for the Falcons, can also be a big part of it, although Cuthbertson said he hasn’t seen him so far this summer.

Cuthbertson likes the young guys who are coming up. Jaylen Donaldson is a name to remember.

“We’ll be ready to go in November and we’ll be OK,” Cuthbertson said. “We’ll be young, but we’ll have some size. The plan is to keep the tradition of good West teams going.”