How is the MS Coast’s ABA team filling out its roster? We found out the very hard way
I was sitting on the bathroom floor at the Gaston Point Community Center in Gulfport, dazed and disoriented. I had lost hearing in one ear and I was questioning more than a few life choices.
When I finally gathered enough strength to get up, I asked our visual journalist Hannah Ruhoff for the time, estimating it to be around 6 p.m. She informed me it was only 5:22.
I was just 20 minutes into my tryout with the ABA’s South Coast Sea Turtles.
Jerry Thompson is a Mississippi Coast native who is bringing his semi-professional basketball team home. The Moss Point High School graduate co-owns the Sea Turtles with his wife, Mariah. As part of the transition from the team’s original location in Southern California, Thompson needed a new roster.
We wanted to get an inside look at the process of putting together a team for the relocated ABA organization. What better way to do that than by joining the process itself? I played ball in high school, it’s my favorite sport to cover during the athletic year and I’ve got several years of experience coaching youth basketball.
So I signed up for tryouts. What could go wrong?
Everything could go wrong
It was fine at first. I knocked down some shots while warming up. I was stretching, getting excited and feeling good. We started with a simple transition offense drill. I even made a couple of passes I was proud of.
But I was quickly beginning to feel the effects of not being in the gym for the past couple of months. Then the drill wasn’t executed correctly for the second or third time and Thompson had seen enough.
We were running.
Two down and backs. I attribute this moment to my total breakdown. I didn’t want to be way in the back, so I sprinted them. Not a good call.
We moved into the UCLA shooting drill. Minimal movement, knock down some shots. I missed all of them. My brain was starting to shut down and I even messed up the drill a couple times.
I was cooked. It was over for me. I have never ran into a wall harder than I did this one. That’s when I took my first break in the bathroom.
Upon returning the group had elicited another down and back while I was out. I thought to myself, “I’m a team player, I’ll knock this out with the guys.”
Probably a good sign my head was not functioning properly. Once we finished running, it was time for a transition defense drill. I was familiar with it.
As long as Thompson didn’t roll the ball to the man in front of me, I wouldn’t have to sprint. He rolled the ball to the man in front of me. I had to sprint to the baseline and hustle back up the court to catch up with the action.
I ran this drill a couple more times before subbing myself out. I sat for about 30 seconds before realizing what was about to happen. I did the fast walk to the bathroom and hurled in the trash can.
I resigned myself to watching after that.
Thompson’s tryout isn’t a basic show-your-skills event. It was essentially treated as a practice zero to allow those who came to showcase their physical abilities as well as their mental processing and teamwork capabilities.
“It’s a lot of situational things, there will be some scrimmaging done as well as some drills,” Thompson said. “Everything will be situational ... we’ll have different defensive tasks and mini-challenges within everything that we’re doing. That way you can see how guys respond to adversity and different scenarios during the game.”
Players were worked through full court pressure situations and charged with defending at different levels of the court to test reactiveness, effort and IQ.
I sat for most of the scrimmage work, but I did hop in one more time for a half of a game. It didn’t go well. But this time, mostly because I simply couldn’t handle the basketball. Two touches, two unforced turnovers. I did play decent defense on top of our 2-3 zone, but overall it was a sobering moment realizing just far I’ve fallen since my playing days.
But there was no negativity from the other players even though they weren’t aware I was media. Thompson was careful to only invite particular individuals out of the pool of those who signed up through an interview process designed to peek inside a player’s personality.
The result was a group that meshed fairly well in their very first setting together despite some being local and others traveling for the opportunity.
“It’s a pretty solid group of guys,” said Lakendrick Sullivan — a Hattiesburg native who played at Mississippi College and William Carey. “With the right coaching and development, we’ll be a solid squad this year.”
The players who will make up the 2024-25 Sea Turtles all have varying levels of experience. Thompson has two primary goals for those players and his team: community outreach and furthering basketball opportunities.
He wants his team to be involved with the community and already has events planned with local churches to serve the area. Thompson also wants to develop his players in hopes they can snag an overseas opportunity with a professional club.
In the meantime, there’s work to do. The Sea Turtles will begin practice soon before embarking on their new schedule within the ABA’s black division in the South region.
I also have work to do. If it wasn’t clear, I didn’t get the email confirming my status as the newest combo guard for the Sea Turtles.
I’ll be back for next year’s tryouts. No cameras this time. And hopefully no revisiting that day’s lunch in the bathroom, either.
