Bucs sweep 7A basketball championships for second straight season
By Josh Bean | For the AHSAA
Images by David Holtsford for the AHSAA and Al Blanton
Hoover High School’s Bucs earned a second straight Class 7A boys’ baskektball state championship with Saturday’s 59-34 victory over Enterprise at the BJCC’s Legacy Arena.
Salim London led the Bucs (30-3) with 20 points, seven rebounds and five assists, and tournament MVP Dewayne Brown added 15 points and 11 rebounds.
“The thing about this group, and I always say winners win, and these guys are winners,” Hoover coach Scott Ware said.
Enterprise (26-5), coached by Rhett Harrelson, made its third trip to the Class 7A championship game in the last four seasons. The Wildcats finished runner-up to Oak Mountain in 2021, beat James Clemens 66-64 to win the 2022 title and fell to Hoover on Saturday.
The Bucs led 32-19 at halftime, opened the second half with a 7-0 run and ran away with the victory.
Brown, a 6-foot-9 junior, made 6-of-7 shots and 3-of-4 at the free-throw line. He also had three assists and three blocked shots.
“They had an answer for everything we did,” Harrelson said. “We ran into a really, really good team. Credit to them. They forced us to play poorly, turn it over and not play real well.”
Eric Winters led Enterprise with 14 points and seven rebounds, and Tucker Wadsworth added 13 points.
Hoover’s girls basketball team also won the Class 7A title earlier Saturday, meaning the Bucs swept the 7A championships for the second straight season.
Ware was asked in the post-game press conference if Hoover should now be considered a basketball school.
“You said, I didn’t,” Ware said with a smile. “Hoover is an everything school.”
