Cross-town rarity: Asheville High faces Asheville School in boys basketball for 1st time in years
James Crabtree-Hannigan
Asheville Citizen Times
ASHEVILLE — Thirty phone calls later, Jordan Phillips decided to look a few miles west.
The Asheville High boys basketball coach was struggling to fill out this season's schedule, so he turned to an option both obvious and somewhat unheard of.
Asheville High played a home-and-home series with Asheville School that was completed Tuesday night, the first time in at least 15 years the programs faced each other, and the first time since 2013 the Cougars played a local private school.
"We can't find schools around here to play us," Phillips said. "We have to go out of town or play private schools."
The Blues, led by four-star junior Gus Yalden and Stony Brook signee Leon Nahar, won both games over the rebuilding Cougars handily, winning 67-44 at home Dec. 7 and 61-30 at The High a week later.
"It's nice for neither one of us to have to drive to Charlotte or High Point," Blues coach Nick Whitmore said. "It's fun for us to cross town."
Relations between the area's private schools and public schools have long been spotty, especially in basketball, with de facto scheduling bans in effect at times.
The last time Asheville High played a local private school's boys basketball team was in 2013, and private schools haven't been on most other Buncombe County schedules for at least as long, either.
The matchup between Asheville School and Asheville High hasn't happened dating back to at least the early 2000s.
The Cougars and Blues had scrimmaged in Whitmore's first year with the program and made plans to play during the 2020-21 season, but the pandemic wiped out those games. Faced with the same scheduling crunch for this year, Phillips penciled the Blues into two more open dates.
"It's two-fold; we wanted to put our guys up against tough competition. We know, moving to 4A, we're going to see some of this in the playoffs," Phillips said. "You get exposed a little bit, you see where you need to get better."
Asheville High, already replacing much of its production from a spring team that went 4-10, was especially shorthanded Tuesday, with just a few players available off the bench.
The Blues took advantage, leading 20-2 after the first quarter and 48-14 at halftime. Yalden, a 6-foot-8 big man who returned from foot surgery earlier this season, had a team-high 15 points.
"With Gus coming back, he's changed the dynamic, and it's taken us a little bit to figure that out," Whitmore said. "But he's such an unselfish player that he's made it quicker."
Most of the Cougars' success came against the visitors' backups, and it was provided by William Edgens. The junior had 10 consecutive points in the second quarter, and finished with a game-high 19 points and a trio of 3-pointers.
"We had four kids that scored [last season], he was one of them and we lost the other three," Phillips said. "He's showing he can do that some, but it's definitely going to take a group effort."
The student sections for both sides were livelier than they would've otherwise been for a December game against a less familiar nonconference opponent, and an official summoned a police officer to reprimand a fan whose protestations apparently crossed a line.
Those scenes have been mostly absent from Buncombe County gyms for years, but may be a more common sight moving forward.
"It's been great," Whitmore said. "I think it's good for both of our schools. It's fun."
James Crabtree-Hannigan
Asheville Citizen Times
ASHEVILLE — Thirty phone calls later, Jordan Phillips decided to look a few miles west.
The Asheville High boys basketball coach was struggling to fill out this season's schedule, so he turned to an option both obvious and somewhat unheard of.
Asheville High played a home-and-home series with Asheville School that was completed Tuesday night, the first time in at least 15 years the programs faced each other, and the first time since 2013 the Cougars played a local private school.
"We can't find schools around here to play us," Phillips said. "We have to go out of town or play private schools."
The Blues, led by four-star junior Gus Yalden and Stony Brook signee Leon Nahar, won both games over the rebuilding Cougars handily, winning 67-44 at home Dec. 7 and 61-30 at The High a week later.
"It's nice for neither one of us to have to drive to Charlotte or High Point," Blues coach Nick Whitmore said. "It's fun for us to cross town."
Relations between the area's private schools and public schools have long been spotty, especially in basketball, with de facto scheduling bans in effect at times.
The last time Asheville High played a local private school's boys basketball team was in 2013, and private schools haven't been on most other Buncombe County schedules for at least as long, either.
The matchup between Asheville School and Asheville High hasn't happened dating back to at least the early 2000s.
The Cougars and Blues had scrimmaged in Whitmore's first year with the program and made plans to play during the 2020-21 season, but the pandemic wiped out those games. Faced with the same scheduling crunch for this year, Phillips penciled the Blues into two more open dates.
"It's two-fold; we wanted to put our guys up against tough competition. We know, moving to 4A, we're going to see some of this in the playoffs," Phillips said. "You get exposed a little bit, you see where you need to get better."
Asheville High, already replacing much of its production from a spring team that went 4-10, was especially shorthanded Tuesday, with just a few players available off the bench.
The Blues took advantage, leading 20-2 after the first quarter and 48-14 at halftime. Yalden, a 6-foot-8 big man who returned from foot surgery earlier this season, had a team-high 15 points.
"With Gus coming back, he's changed the dynamic, and it's taken us a little bit to figure that out," Whitmore said. "But he's such an unselfish player that he's made it quicker."
Most of the Cougars' success came against the visitors' backups, and it was provided by William Edgens. The junior had 10 consecutive points in the second quarter, and finished with a game-high 19 points and a trio of 3-pointers.
"We had four kids that scored [last season], he was one of them and we lost the other three," Phillips said. "He's showing he can do that some, but it's definitely going to take a group effort."
The student sections for both sides were livelier than they would've otherwise been for a December game against a less familiar nonconference opponent, and an official summoned a police officer to reprimand a fan whose protestations apparently crossed a line.
Those scenes have been mostly absent from Buncombe County gyms for years, but may be a more common sight moving forward.
"It's been great," Whitmore said. "I think it's good for both of our schools. It's fun."
