A Stone senior pitches as well as he rebounds. Is his future in baseball or basketball?
When Stone High basketball coach Todd Miller first saw Cortez Dennis, he was a small kid standing on the corner waiting to get in his van that picked up children for church on Wednesday nights.
That was the point when Miller was beginning to hear buzz about how good of an athlete Dennis was at a young age, but the talk wasn’t about his basketball abilities.
“He was small, but he was the best athlete in his class,” Miller said. “All the dads wanted him on their baseball team.”
Now a 6-foot-6, 175-pound senior, any baseball or basketball coach in South Mississippi would love to have Dennis on their high school roster.
It wasn’t until he hit a growth spurt and stood 6-4 as a freshman that Miller began to think about him as a potential member of his basketball squad. As a senior, Dennis has grown well into his frame and is often the most fluid athlete on the court.
Averaging 22.2 points and 12.3 rebounds a game, he has led the Tomcats’ basketball team to a 12-4 record and 8-0 in Region 7-4A.
The wing’s tenacity on the boards is what has made him a game-changer this season in Wiggins.
“His 3-point shot has come around this year, but he’s so athletic with long arms,” Miller said. “He’s good at tracking the ball off the rim. He can go get offensive rebounds, put-backs.
“He needs to improve a little, guard-wise, as far as his ball-handling goes, but his offensive rebounding, he does that the best.”
Cortez Dennis balances 2 sports at Stone High
While Dennis is the senior star on the basketball team at Stone High, it’s unclear if that’s the sport that gives him the best chance to allow him to compete well beyond his high school career.
Dennis has verbally committed to play basketball and baseball at Meridian Community College. The Southern Miss basketball program made some early contact with Dennis, but the Div. I interest he’s received since then has been on the baseball side — Louisiana-Monroe, Southern University and Alcorn State.
His tall, slender frame works well on the pitcher’s mound, and he’s beginning to get some interest from MLB scouts.
It was during the State Games of Mississippi last summer when a scout for the Miami Marlins first approached him after he hit 91 mph on the radar gun, earning him an invite to a showcase for high school prospects.
“They like my size, said I had a good frame,” Dennis said. “That gives me a lot of confidence.”
Even with most of his college interest coming from the baseball side, Dennis continues to show potential in basketball.
“Going into college, I want to play both,” Dennis said. “Once one season comes around, and then another comes around, and I’m not playing the other one. I’m going to miss that.”
Jonathan Williams, an assistant coach for the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College women’s basketball team, is the man Dennis calls “Pops,” and he has played a key role in his basketball development. The two worked together in the weight room over the summer, helping him pack on 10 pounds of muscle. They’ve also put in time to improve his ball-handling skills on the perimeter.
Is baseball his future?
While Miller sees potential in Dennis in basketball, even he acknowledges that his highest ceiling may be on the baseball side.
“Coach Williams is probably going to kill me when I say this, but when you get to college there are going to be a lot of guys 6-6, 6-8, 6-9,” Miller said. “I really believe he can go further in baseball just being a 6-6 pitcher. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great basketball player. If he gets better ball handling-wise, the sky is the limit. He’ll definitely play on the Div. I level if he puts muscle on, gets in the weight program and eats right.”
Dennis has been getting in some baseball work, including long tosses, during basketball season, but he’ll face a quick transition to the pitcher’s mound once the schedule starts around Feb. 20.
Stone High baseball coach Sean Miller is in his third season after serving previously on the staff at Ocean Springs, where he helped groom another talented lanky pitcher — Garrett Crochet.
A left-hander, Crochet blossomed during his senior season at Ocean Springs but didn’t garner major Division 1 or MLB interest until he threw 91 mph in summer action after he graduated.
Crochet was drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers in the 34th round of the 2017 MLB Draft but chose to sign with Tennessee out of high school.
The White Sox made Crochet the 11th overall pick in the 2020 draft and gave him a $4.55 million signing bonus. He quickly made the rise to the majors, putting up a 0.00 ERA in five games as one of the rare draftees to play in the big leagues in the same year as they’re drafted.
Like Dennis, Crochet was was a slender 6-6 pitcher who topped out in the low 90’s as a senior in high school.
Crochet now hits 100 mph with ease, doing it 11 times in one inning against the Cleveland Indians this past season.
Sean Miller admits it’s hard to determine how high of a ceiling Dennis has after the COVID-19 pandemic cut short the 2020 season, limiting him to only about 12 innings on the mound.
“Well, it’s difficult to say. He’s got a lot of up side in baseball just with the simple fact he’s a 6-6 righty,” Sean Miller said. “Honestly, I get him for 3 ½ months and he’s gone. I don’t see him again with basketball. If he could dedicate himself and work a little bit more at that, who knows. There are a ton of 6-6 shooting guards.”
Right-handers don’t carry as much value as lefties in the eyes of pro scouts, and a 100-mph fastball doesn’t happen without a lot of hard work.
“I worked with Garrett Crochet from the ninth grade up,” Sean Miller said. “I’m not saying Cortez is going to throw 100. He’s a mid-90’s guy, no doubt in my mind. Who knows? It could be higher than that with just his frame and the way he rotates.
“If somebody gets him and he dedicates his time … he’s all skin and bones … if you put weight on him and (do specialized training), there’s no doubt he can be a mid-90’s guy.”
Dennis offers more than a fastball.
“He’s got a plus slider. It holds the plane really well,” Sean Miller said. “His fastball stays 88-90 and his slider is 78-82-83, which is very hard to do. He’s got an average change-up, but he’s working on that.”
While both of his varsity coaches believe his future may be in baseball, Dennis enjoys hitting a 3-pointer every bit as much as he does getting the batter swinging on a third strike.
“It’s the same because I love both,” he said. “They’re both my passion. I’ve been playing my whole life.”
If he lands at Meridian Community College as expected, his path forward as an athlete should come into focus.
“I made my decision off of baseball. Meridian has the best program,” Dennis said. “I’m going to junior college because it’s best for me. I need to grow, get bigger. I need more experience before I take off to D1.”
This story was originally published February 2, 2021 at 4:30 AM.
