Rockdale County’s Kevin Ware is the local player who will get the most attention during this weekend’s Final Four. But unfortunately his broken leg will sideline him for the next year.
But Ware’s Cardinals will have their hands full with the other Georgia boys in the Final Four. Both of them found their way to Wichita State, but in very different ways.
So if you’re looking for a team to adopt this weekend. Not only are the Shockers the Cinderella Team, but they also love the local boys.
“I’ve always recruited Georgia hard,” Wichita State head coach Gregg Marshall said during a teleconference this week.
And he found two very good players down here in sophomore guard Tekele Cotton and senior post player Carl Hall.
“They are very tough,” said Marshall. “Both could be playing SEC football. The question you should be asking is, how did the football coaches let these kids out of the state of Georgia? What was Mark Richt thinking?”
Marshall’s tongue firmly planted in his check. But Georgia’s football loss has been Kansas’ round ball game.
Cotton is a key defender and sixth man for the Shockers. He’s the city kid. A private school-star from Cobb County’s Whitfield Academy.
“It’s all love for that school,” said Cotton. “I love everybody at that school.”
And then there is Hall.
“It really hasn’t it hit me yet,” said the 6-foot-8 senior about playing in the Final Four in his home state. “I’m in a daze right now.”
Hall might be from Georgia, but couldn’t have grown up any farther away from Atlanta.
He’s from Cochran. One of those south Georgia wide places in the road. Population: 5,000 or so.
“It’s just a real small town where everybody knows everybody.”
Hall is the Shockers leading rebounder, and second leading scorer. But right now he’s the most important person in Bleckley County.
“They all are about to tear up my phone because of all the texts and phone calls,” says Hall.
Hall says he’s a huge fan of the Atlanta sports teams, but he’s never been to the Georgia Dome or even played basketball in Atlanta.
But six years ago, Atlanta and the Final Four might as well have been on Mars. Because Hall’s heart was ending his basketball days.
He started passing out while in high school.
The first time he passed out; doctors told him it was dehydration.
That summer, he passed out again playing pickup ball in a hot gym. He fainted again in the fall while playing at Middle Georgia College in Cochran, and that’s when his mother found out.
“I didn’t tell her the first two times because I knew she’d make me stop playing basketball,” he said.
Hall was diagnosed with neurocardiogenic syncope, a condition that can make the heart race. So doctors told him to quit basketball. He had to get a job. A $12 an hour overnight shift.
“I started working in a plant for two years,” says Hall. “It was kind of a nasty place to work at but it paid the bills at the time.”
In 2009, the medication Hall was taking improved his condition. He was told he could resume basketball. But he was hesitant, unsure whether he’d pass out again.
Eventually, Hall returned to the court at Northwest Florida State without problems. He signed with Wichita State, and it’s been 2 ½ years since he last fainted. He no longer takes the medication.
But what sold a Georgia boy, on a place in Kansas?
“It’s very similar to (Cochran),” says Hall. “It has a small country-feel too it.”
And that small-town pitch that convinced the city boy to go west.
“I love the community, the coaches and the players,” says Cotton.
Saturday night the small school with the country feel will leave Wichita State into the Final Four for the first time since 1965.
Not a bad welcome home party.
“I’m bringing everybody they allow me too,” says Cotton.
“I’m just trying to take advantage and so it all up,” said Hall.
All they have to do now is beat Louisville. The best team in the country.