Five of the six Dallas-area teams that made state finals across Class 4A, 5A and 6A will each face Houston-area programs in their respective championship...
Kimball High’s Kayden Gray dribbles past Kai Pattonof Centennial High of California during the second half of a Thanksgiving Hoopfest game, on Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, at Duncanville High School.But the widespread Dallas versus Houston clash this weekend might best be embodied by the 4A Division I state championship game between No.
1 Dallas Kimball and No. 6 Houston Washington , members of Dallas ISD and Houston ISD, respectively.Postseason format change has Dallas area hoops community split: ‘I’m just not a fan' The school districts, the two largest in the state, have faced similar challenges, such as declining enrollment. But they have some of the best high school basketball legacies in Texas, combining for 34 boys state titles in the last 50 years.Kimball, based in Dallas’ Oak Cliff area, will make its 13th state final appearance on Friday at 7 p.m. A victory over Washington would grant the storied program an eighth state title and give bragging rights to Dallas. “We’re not only representing our school and community, we’re representing Dallas ISD,” said Kimball coach Nicke Smith, who led the program to a 5A state title in 2023. “As the kids say, ‘We’re going to put the city on our back.’”Washington, which lost to Dallas-based Oak Cliff Faith Family 70-56 in the 2023 4A state championship game, doesn’t have the same pedigree as the Kimball program that won its first UIL state title in 1990. But the school has its own unique history.While Washington claims no UIL state titles, the school won a Prairie View Interscholastic League 4A state championship in 1946. Washington, which opened as “Colored High School” in 1893, competed in the PVIL, the governing body for extra curricular activities for Black high schools in Texas, during the Jim Crow era. The PVIL disbanded at the end of the 1969-70 school year, four years before Paul Graham became the first African American coach of the Kimball boys basketball team. Graham started the coaching tree, full of state champions, that paved the way for Smith. “I’m just glad it’s my turn now,” Smith said. “I knew about the history from the get go. You learn it once you walk in the door. These kids know once they come into Kimball as ninth graders that we are the standard and they know about the history and tradition of the program.”Kimball fell short of that standard last season, losing to Frisco Lone Star in the second round of the playoffs. “Right after we lost, we had practice on Monday,” said Kimball senior guard Jaylon Dean-Vines, a three-star Vanderbilt signee who is averaging a team-high 15.3 points per game. “We got back in the gym and just got ready for next year.” This season, Kimball moved down from Class 5A to Class 4A after turning in an enrollment of 1,260 for the last UIL realignment cycle. The move hasn’t stopped Kimball from beating larger schools, including the very best Class 6A, the state’s highest classification, has to offer. Last November, Kimball edged five-time UIL state champion Duncanville, a 6A state finalist this year, by one point. Kimball was competitive with several other programs in higher classifications and went undefeated in District 11-4A for the district title.“We not only beat Duncanville, we beat C.E. King out of Houston, DeSoto and I believe we could have beaten anybody,” Smith said. “I tell people I’ve got 7A basketball players playing 4A. So when you’ve got 7A basketball players — we don’t even have 7A in the State of Texas — but I feel we can beat anybody.”On Friday, Kimball hopes that “anybody” is Houston Washington, the District 20-4A champion that beat LBJ Austin 76-56 in the 4A Division I state semifinals. Senior guard Robert Jones scored a reported game-high 32 points in the win. “They made it to state,” said senior forward Lance Carr, a three-star UAB signee. “But every team’s good until they play us.”Kimball has previously faced a Houston-area team in the state finals five times, beating Houston Clear Lake 65-59 for its first state championship, a 5A title in 1990. The program is 4-1 in state title games against Houston area-teams, having lost the 2013 4A state championship 55-47 to Rosenberg Terry. Against Houston ISD schools, specifically, Kimball is 1-0 in the state championships. The state power beat Houston Yates 78-75 for the 4A state championship in 2012. Since 1975, Dallas ISD has won 22 UIL boys basketball state championships compared to Houston ISD’s 12 in that same time frame. The last Houston ISD team to win a UIL state championship in boys basketball was Houston Yates in 2014, but it was by forfeit. The UIL stripped Dallas Madison of its back to back 3A state titles in 2013 and 2014 because of an ineligible player, voiding its consecutive state title wins over Yates. Three Houston ISD schools, Washington, Houston Wheatley and Houston Bellaire, will appear in state finals this weekend — all against Dallas-area teams mostly based in suburbs outside the Dallas city limits.But in the 4A Division I state championship game, it will be a true matchup between schools that reside in Dallas and Houston as Kimball tries for title No. 8. “We’re the sole guy standing,” Smith said. “We’re going to go down there and we’re going to bring home a championship.”Jaylon Dean-Vines leads Kimball in dominant state semifinal win over Lubbock EstacadoMyah Taylor covers high school sports. She formerly worked as a Collin County reporter for The Dallas Morning News. Taylor has contributed to the Austin American-Statesman, Yahoo Sports, the Los Angeles Times and Texas Monthly. She is a 2022 graduate of the University of Texas at Austin.
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