QEA closes out regular season in blow-out fashion
Photo by Craig T. Greenlee
Pape Ndiaye puts up a shot after grabbing an offensive rebound.
BY CRAIG T. GREENLEE
FOR THE CHRONICLE
Quality Education Academy gave its avid followers much to cheer about in its last game of the regular season last Thursday. The Pharaohs bolted to an early lead, and then shifted into overdrive in a 74-46 victory over Forest Trail Academy.
Deshawn Corprew, a 6-5 shooting guard who’s ranked among ESPN’s Top 100 players in the country, set the tone for QEA with a game-high 28 points. Jaylen McGill was next with 12, and Pape Ndiaye finished with eight points.
Forest Trail, which is located in Kernersville, was led by lefty point guard Deshawn Patterson who finished with 25 points, mostly on dazzling drives and tear-drop shots.
It was Senior Night for several folks on the QEA roster, who were honored and applauded at halftime. For those soon-to-be departing student-athletes, which include Corprew and Ndiaye, it marked the final time in their high school careers that they would play in front of the home fans in the Pharaohs gym.
“Tonight was really about the kids,” said coach Isaac Pitts of QEA, whose team finished the regular season with a 26-4 record. “The seniors got most of the (playing) minutes and had some fun in the process.”
The Pharaohs led by eight points in midway through the second quarter. The game, however, quickly turned into a run-away when Corprew scored on double-clutch drives, pull-up jumpers and a thunderous dunk. By the end of the first half, QEA’s margin had ballooned to 58-34.
“This was a good game, and we had a lot of fun, too,” said Ndiaye. “The season has gone well for us. We’ve been playing great.”
Corprew was pleased with his team’s performance in its regular-season finale. By the end of this month, he’s expected to announce where he will play college basketball. Corprew has attracted heavy interest in recent months from high-profile programs such as Kansas, Texas A&M, UCLA and Louisville.
“I felt like we did an excellent job on Senior Night,” he said. “We wanted to come out, have some fun and end the (regular) season right.”
Now that the regular season is history, QEA turns its attention to get-ting ready for the big stage in high school basketball. The Pharaohs are part of an elite 12-team field for the Grind Session National Championship, which will be played next week (March 24-27) in Lawrence, Kan.
The GSNC has the makings of becoming a marquee event because of the talent level. Team rosters are loaded with some of the nation’s elite-level high school basketball players. Quite a few are rated in the Top 100.
QEA is no stranger to this level of competition. Close to half of the opposing teams on the Pharaohs’ schedule played on the Grind Session tour that had stops in 17 cities across the U.S. plus Canada. In Grind Session match-ups, QEA posted a 7-3 record.
“We’re about halfway through our preparations,” said Pitts. “We’ve seen everybody (in the field), so we know what to expect. At this time of the season, it’s not about running up and down the court. That’s why we’ve been doing some maintenance stuff such strengthening the bodies and studying a lot of film of our opponents. The major focus is making sure that our guys are mentally ready to play.”
