Southwestern boys basketball coach Terry Leverette doesn't need, want or even expect perfection from his team. With two losses already, that's impossible for this season, and besides, they are kids, after all, and prone to being inconsistent.
But Leverette believes if he can just get his fourth-ranked Sabers (9-2) to pick up their defensive intensity, they have a chance to do great things.
"If the team is willing to play 70 percent defense - not 100 percent, just 70 - they can go a long way," he said.
Perhaps as far as the city championship game and the state final, places Southwestern hasn't been since the 1996-97 season, when Leverette guided the Sabers to a perfect 27-0 season and the school's first-ever No. 1 ranking.
Leverette said this year's team, which will face No. 11 Mervo this afternoon, has the chance to repeat that double, provided, of course, it's willing to commit to stopping the opposition.
"We have all the pieces, but we lack a little intensity sometimes," he said. "We kind of go to sleep sometimes. Kids don't want to play defense or work hard. When we do that, we're fine, but sometimes we're not aggressive enough.
"If this team would just hunker down and just say, `We're going to play Southwestern-style defense,' this team can beat anybody in the country."
That lack of intensity apparently reared its ugly head in Southwestern's two early-season losses, to Walbrook in the season opener and to Douglass on Jan. 3.
In the game at Douglass, the Sabers let an unruly crowd affect them, while the loss to their longtime rival at Walbrook came when they allowed the Warriors to break a tie in the final 20 seconds, and then missed a game-tying shot at the buzzer.
"We were up for most of the games," said Jarwand Rheubottom, the Sabers' 6-foot-5 star forward. "We just let them back in the game in the fourth quarter. We don't know how to close out games. We're working on it now. We're getting there."
Indeed, Southwestern is showing signs of putting it all together as it gears up for the heart of league play. The Sabers scored impressive nonconference wins in the Basketball Academy tournament, turning back Philadelphia-area power Imhotep, 58-53, then beating Gwynn Park of Prince George's County, 58-49.
Then, Southwestern recorded perhaps its biggest win of the year against No. 8 Dunbar, turning back the Poets last Friday with three blocks on the final Dunbar possession, exhibiting the kind of defense Leverette has been looking for.
Then, the Sabers broke open a surprisingly close game with Edmondson in the second half Tuesday.
"In those slip-ups, we didn't play as we're known to play," said center Wayne Dorsey. "We need to play good D, limit teams to one shot and crash the boards."
Providence-bound guard Jamal Barney, the area's leading scorer at 28.3 points a game, understandably draws opponents' attention, but Dorsey, a 6-8 senior who transferred to Southwestern from Howard County two years ago, has blossomed into a solid Division I scholarship candidate.
Dorsey's 12.2 rebounds a game are second in the area and he has become an intimidating presence in the middle.
"I shut them down," said a grinning Dorsey, who said he might go to a prep school next year to improve his stock. "I like playing D. I was the defensive stopper on my AAU team. I'm a bit of a late bloomer, but I'm getting there.'`
"Wayne is 6-8 and people don't think that he can dribble," Barney said. "Now, he can take his man off the dribble and dunk on them. I like it when people play box-and-one on me. That means Wayne and Jarwand can have good games.'`
It's that camaraderie that has wafted through the Sabers' locker room and fuels their play. Their six-man rotation alone would likely encourage a familial feeling, but the rumors their school might be closed next year in a cost-cutting move gives their efforts an additional emotional boost that could get them to the state final in College Park in March.
"This is a very special team because it's the last team at Southwestern, based on what everyone is saying," Leverette said. "It's so crazy and so fitting that this team be so special. It's the last team."
milton.kent@baltsun.com
