Atlantic basketball beats Forest Hill in head coach Tony Watson's return
WEST PALM BEACH — The past and present collided Wednesday night for Atlantic High basketball coach Tony Watson.
The first-year Eagles coach took his team into the Forest Hill High gym, where he enjoyed perhaps the greatest season of his long and storied career. Three years ago, Watson led the Falcons to a 28-3 record that included district and regional championships and a trip to the state tournament, where they lost in the semifinals.
The stakes were much lower Wednesday night. Watson's new team defeated his old one 61-49 in a mistake-filled matchup of teams trying to nudge above .500.
Senior forward Kevine Ulysse scored 16 points and grabbed seven rebounds to lead Atlantic (4-3). Junior forward Jabari Henry added 14 points.
"We're not satisfied with that win at all," Ulysse said. "We practiced hard enough to be able to win by at least 20 points."
Senior guard Travis McIntyre scored 16 points and junior forward Da'Quan Anderson added 14 for Forest Hill (4-5).
Watson finds himself in a familiar situation. After a successful six-year run at Palm Beach Gardens and a brief stint as an assistant at Palm Beach Atlantic University, he took over a Forest Hill program that had been mediocre at best and transformed it into a power. Now he's trying to do the same at Atlantic, a school known more for its football program.
"I knew from the past, from playing Atlantic through the years, that there were some athletes there," Watson said. "I felt that my staff and I could take what's there and build a good culture for basketball."
When he saw his team for the first time, he realized he'd have to start with the basics.
"The first thing I knew we had to do was teach our kids some fundamentals," he said. "That's the most important thing. We knew we had kids that weren't playing year-round."
So it was no surprise that when Watson addressed the team after Wednesday night's game, he dwelled on the Eagles' lack of fundamentals. Missed free throws. Blown layups. Careless turnovers. Not keeping the pressure on when they led by as many as 18 points in the fourth quarter.
It's all part of a learning curve for the Eagles, who have struggled against the better teams on their schedule (Royal Palm Beach, Cardinal Newman, Wellington). But Ulysse, for one, believes Watson's message is getting through.
"I think we all can agree he's the best coach we ever had," Ulysse said. "I never had that type of coach my whole life, just the type of training we get and the way he brings us together as a team. ... We need to start the game with a better pace, play better defense, make our layups, make our free throws. We've got to go harder in practice."
Junior guard Lincoln Graf, the starting quarterback on the football team, agrees. Graf scored five points as a reserve while zipping passes all over the court and playing stingy defense.
"He has his philosophy, and if we can make his plan work, we can go far," Graf said. "But we've got to make his plan work."
That plan is built on defense, and Watson said it's become increasingly difficult to teach that aspect of the game to high school players.
"Kids watch a lot of video, a lot of stuff on TV," Watson said. "They don't see the importance of playing defense. That's what we have to get across to our kids. ... We're not far off. Like I tell the kids, defense is 90% desire. You've got to want to play it."
Watson is eager to see what the rest of the season brings as he tries to make Atlantic known for more than just football.
"The thing about building a program up, you get a chance to put your identity to it," he said. "I think that as the season wears on, we're going to be improving because there's a lot of things that the kids need to learn. The more games, the more practices, they're going to start learning those things. ... We look forward to seeing how we can build that culture."
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Atlantic basketball beats Forest Hill in head coach Tony Watson's return
