The next Shaq... or Ralph Sampson?

[StangEsq]

Ralph Sampson's 6'-10" son (by the same name) led his high school team to the state championship by scoring 14 points, grabbing 10 boards and blocking 9 shots... and he's in NINTH GRADE!

Butler pulls off unlikely repeat
Team turnaround ends with 72-57 win over Shaw
Sunday, March 06, 2005
By MIKE EASTERLING
Times Sports Staff [email protected]

BIRMINGHAM - As the Butler boys basketball players charged onto the floor of the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center to collect the Class 5A state championship trophy, Queen's "We Are the Champions" was piped out of the speakers as it is after every final.

But don't tell Rebels coach Jack Doss the scene is played out.

"That song doesn't get old," he told one of his assistants.

Butler went 38 years between its first and second boys championships, but a final four long shot without a senior made sure the wait wasn't as long before the third was secured.

The unranked Rebels, 6-8 at one point in the season, used a balanced attack to upset top-ranked Shaw 72-57 Saturday night for their second straight championship. After winning it all last season with five senior starters, Butler was expected to rebuild. But 6-foot-10 freshman center Ralph Sampson III was added after Christmas, juniors with final four experience like Jeff Smith and Erwin Staten began leading the way and the Rebels went on a roll.

It ended with one of the more improbable championships ever by a team from the Huntsville area.

Soon after it was over, Buck Johnson, who played for Doss when he led Hayes to state championships in 1981 and '82, hugged his former coach and said what many have thought all season.

"Nobody gave you a chance, did they coach?" Johnson asked.

"It makes me love our seniors from last year for setting the bar and letting these players know the impossible is possible," Doss said.

It was a title made possible as much as anything by the addition of Sampson.

"I don't think we get this far without him," Smith said.

Playing up-and-down since the holidays - something that should be expected from a freshman - Sampson brought his best game to the final and finished one blocked shy of a triple-double.

He had 14 points, 11 rebounds and nine blocks and made the all-tournament team.

"It's an overwhelming feeling of happiness and joy," Sampson said. "It's just 'Wow.'"

Smith scored 20 points and had two steals in earning tournament Most Valuable Player honors.

Also in double figures for Butler (19-10) were junior Roderick Smith with 15 and Staten with 14. Cornelius Hester scored 22 points for Shaw (31-3).

The Rebels appeared to be outmatched when Shaw scored the game's first nine points. But Butler got to within 14-9 at the end of the opening quarter and 29-25 at halftime.

The Rebels then switched from a 2-3 matchup zone to a triangle-and-two defense for the second half and began trapping the Eagles.

The move worked, and when Terrance Alexander put back a missed free throw Butler had the lead for good at 37-35 with 4:42 left in the third.

The lead never slipped below four the rest of the way.

"Every time we got a spark somehow, someway they were able to dampen our spark," Shaw coach Otis Hughley said.

Said Doss, "I thought changing defense was the difference,"

With all of the Butler players returning, the buildup will soon begin about another possible title next season. Smith said the Rebels will embrace it.

"I'm trying to get a three-peat," he said.

[rich_alum]

That is so random.....Ralph played ball in Virginia, followed by a career in Houston.....how did he end up in Birmingham? Buck also played for the Rockets.

[Phil Fan]

It's too bad he had so many injuries. For a while, especially in college, Big Ralph was simply unstoppable.

[No Cal Pony]

rich, ralph III lives with his mom in Alabama. Dad lives in Atlanta area. They divorced years ago, and he rarely see his kid.

Sampson was quite a hero at uva, though many though he would play @ kentucky. No doubt uva would love to see his kid play there too.

Go Ponies!

[socite]

I read somewhere that the mother's brother played for the coach of this high schhol and suggested that the boy and his mother move to Alabama so he could play for his former coach.