Playing high school basketball just across the Arkansas line in Kilbourne, La., Lee Johnson got a taste of Natural State competition traveling to games in Fountain Hill and Arkansas City.
Now coaching just down the road from Kilbourne in Oak Grove, Johnson is leading the Lady Tigers onto a much bigger Southeast Arkansas stage — the King Cotton Holiday Classic. And a central figure to Oak Grove’s debut in this year’s festival is Caroline Bradley, Louisiana’s Miss Basketball and the state’s Gatorade Player of the Year.
The 6-foot-5 junior center is helping Oak Grove (7-2), last season’s Division III non-select state runner-up, bring girls action back to King Cotton after a four-year wait with a 4 p.m. tipoff Saturday against Watson Chapel (9-3). With averages of 29.2 points and 21.5 rebounds per game and a No. 3 ranking in ESPN’s SportsCenter NEXT Super 60, Bradley could be the highest-profile girls player in King Cotton history.
“She’s accomplished what she’s accomplished by her willingness to work,” Johnson said. “She’s the hardest-working kid I’ve ever seen, back when I was playing or even now. She puts the work in and deserves every bit of success that she’s had.”
Among Bradley’s supporting cast is Ellie Ray, a senior who attacks the rim and is a strong on-ball defender by Johnson’s account, and fellow post player Jenna Beth Simmons, who is said to be a good mid-range shooter.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“She’s a great teammate,” Johnson said of Bradley. “All her teammates love her, so it makes my job easy to have a kid who can play at that level. She just wants to win and doesn’t care about the stats.”
Bradley and company are not the only standouts representing small schools in the 24th King Cotton, the seventh since its 2018 reboot.
Barton (11-2), a burgeoning 2A contender, is making its King Cotton debut and will tip the event off at 10 a.m. Saturday against defending Mississippi 4A champion Raymond (12-5).
A major reason for Barton’s early season success is 6-2 senior combo guard Christian Williams, who turns 18 Saturday.
Williams averages 16 points, four rebounds and four assists per game. His minutes have been limited because of blowout victories by the Bears, his father Chris Williams explained, but Christian also has scored 35 points against Forrest City and 30 in the season opener against Clarendon.
Ironically, Christian Williams’ career high is 40 against Barton last season, when he and his father were at Brinkley. “He’s probably one of the most explosive kids in the state, but he’s also one of the most slept-on kids in the state,” Chris Williams said. “He’s still not known in many parts, but if you mention him in the Delta or east Arkansas, he’s grown a reputation in this area. But that’s the reason why we want to travel out to Central Arkansas or Northwest Arkansas as much as we can to build that buzz a little bit more.”
Chris and Christian Williams are one of at least two coach-son combos in this year’s King Cotton, joining Inglewood, Calif.’s Jason Crowe Sr. and Jason Crowe Jr. The younger Crowe is a University of Missouri signee who averages 44.7 points per game and needs just 43 to reach 4,000 for his career.
The Williamses led Brinkley to the 1A state semifinal round in 2024, suffering a narrow loss to eventual champion Marked Tree, and won the 1A Region 3 championship last season. The elder Williams said he and Christian could have gone to a 5A or 6A school, but being at Barton allows the coach to grow professionally in the academic realm as a dean of students. The younger Williams also has 6-7 senior forward Qulan Green (11 points, eight rebounds per game) to help carry the scoring load. Barton will miss 6-0 sophomore Quinteriyon Wilson, the team’s third-leading scorer, due to an injury, for about a month.
“The guys have been wanting to be coached up for the last few years,” Chris Williams said. “Getting a group that’s hungry like that is just a perfect recipe, and so far we’re off to a good start.”
Best known for its football prowess of the 1980s and 1990s, Barton is the smallest school to participate in King Cotton in recent memory. Eventual 4A champion Magnolia won a King Cotton championship in 2021 behind the play of two-time Gatorade Arkansas Player of the Year Derrian Ford, now a star at Temple University.
“We’ve been the smallest school in a lot of tournaments we’ve entered this season,” Chris Williams said. “It’s just the talent level I have and the belief I have in these guys that we don’t just want to play a weak conference schedule. We want to get tested out here in the nonconference and get tested. If we take our lumps, we’ll learn from them, but it also gives these guys a chance to showcase their skills.”
Christian Williams has also showcased his talents in the NXTPRO Puma Circuit over the summer. But what’s a premier high school basketball classic without a national-circuit team? Faith Family Academy (12-3) of Dallas’ Oak Cliff area plays in the Nike EYBL Scholastic circuit, which facilitates national-level basketball for 20 four-year prep schools and academies. They are led by senior twins Gavin and Gallagher Placide, both of whom committed to Wake Forest University.
“One of them is more interior than the other,” Faith Family Coach Brandon Thomas said. “Gavin is a little taller. He’s about 6-10, so he does his damage from 10 feet and in. He’s very versatile and can defend multiple positions. The same with Gallagher. Gallagher is extremely versatile, but he does a little more on the perimeter. He defends on the perimeter a little better.”
But Thomas boasts two five-star sophomores, guard Josiah Rose (15.3 points per game) and Xavier Young (8.8). The Placide twins each average just more than 10 points a contest.
Faith Family will square off against Pine Bluff (2-8) at 7:15 p.m. Saturday. That game will be followed by another national-level team, Gillion Academy (10-4) of Alexandria, Va., taking on 4A contender Little Rock Hall (11-3) at 8:45 p.m.
Gillion plays many of its games in a circuit known as Grind Session. The Lions from the Washington, D.C., area are led by 7-foot Florida State University signee Marcis Ponder, who is registering 20.1 points and 14.8 rebounds per game.
Faith Family already has a marquee victory this season over longtime national powerhouse Oak Hill Academy from Mouth of Wilson, Va.
“I guess you could look at it that way, from a public point of view,” Thomas said. His program has won championships in Texas’ University Interscholastic League and the Elite Interscholastic Basketball Conference. The EIBC and EYBL Scholastic are signs of the ever-changing landscape of prep hoops.
“For years, you had prep schools like Oak Hill, IMG and Montverde, but they never had a league,” Thomas said. (The latter two schools are in Florida.) “They would just get the best players and go around the country and play the best high schools in the country, mostly beating them because they had the best players.”
The changes in basketball leagues have only added to the diversity of competition levels in King Cotton, something neither of the 20 teams at the Pine Bluff Convention Center are shying away from. (A local boys team, however, did pull out.)
“The way we look at it, we’re trying to win our league,” Thomas said. “We look at anything we play outside of our league as an opportunity for us to get better and get ready for league play.”
