How close friends battled it out with Johnson beating Dougherty in state basketball semifinals

When Bakari Bryant was the head basketball coach at Jenkins, Chuck Campbell was one of his assistants, and they became the best of friends during a run that included two appearances in GHSA state title games.

Now Campbell is in his fourth season as the head coach at Johnson, and Bryant has moved to Albany, where he leads the program at Dougherty. On Saturday night, their brotherhood was put on hold for a few hours as their teams met at Savannah State with a berth in the Class 3A state finals on the line.

Campbell's Atom Smasher squad held off a late surge by the Trojans as Johnson prevailed 55-51 in a classic battle in front of a packed house at SSU. Johnson improved to 20-11 and will face defending champion Sandy Creek (26-3) on Friday, March 8, at the Macon Centreplex at 3 p.m.

After the game, Campbell and Bryant embraced for a few moments ‒ chopping it up and laughing after the intense game. There's no doubt that Bryant will be cheering on his friend in his quest for a championship ring.

"I told him he coached a hell of a game," Bryant said. "He came in with a game plan, and his boys had the mindset that they wanted to win and it showed. They came out and got the 50/50 balls and executed when it was time to execute down the stretch. At this time of the year, it's not about who is the best team, it's about who is playing the best, and they played the best tonight."

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Trailing 47-37 with 5:30 left, Dougherty came on strong and closed to within two points twice, the second time with 1:16 left after Kaleke Singletary-Jinks converted an and-one three-point play to close within 53-51. But Johnson buckled up defensively as sophomore Quentin James drew a charge from Singletary-Links that negated a bucket that would have tied the game with 29 seconds left. Josh Quarterman and Cormari Jones each converted one of two free throws in the final 10 seconds for the final tally.

Johnson, the No. 2 seed out of Region 3-3A, had a wakeup call in the region finals when the Atom Smashers lost to No. 7 seed Savannah Country Day. Since then, Johnson has been hitting on all cylinders behind its Big Three of Quarterman, the Region Player of the Year, Favion Kirkwood and Jones.

Jones had 17 points, with Quarterman and Kirkwood scoring 15 each.

"This feels great ‒ we came out and played our hardest tonight," Jones said. "They (Dougherty) smacked us by like 20 points early in the year. And we came out with a chip on our shoulder. We wanted it more tonight. We started to click when the playoffs started, and we're starting to play as a team where everyone knows their roles."

Dougherty, which finished 23-8, was led by Singletary-Jinks, who scored 18. Jawuan Jinks Jr. and Markelle Jones added 11 points each.

Kirkwood said Johnson has a lot of respect for Dougherty and Bryant.

"They come from out in the country and have a different style ‒ they are fast, quick and scrappy. But we were the stronger team tonight," Kirkwood said. "That loss to Savannah Country Day humbled us. A lot of people counted us out, but we got back to playing Johnson basketball and that's been the key."

Campbell was loving every moment of the big win. In his first three years as Atom Smashers coach, his team was eliminated in the state quarterfinals. Now it has a chance to win Johnson's fourth GHSA state title and first since 2013, when the Atom Smashers beat Savannah High in the finals.

"Dougherty embarrassed us (in a 66-48 loss on Nov. 18), but we're a different team now and we had a game plan," Campbell said. "We missed some free throws that made it close, but we played as a family, we played together."

After all the media interviews, Campbell saw Bryant down the hall and made sure to shout out a reminder that his friend owed him dinner from a wager they had on the game.

"We text each other every morning before big games. we say it's game time," Campbell said "Today I text him and said it was time to kill a mosquito with a sledge hammer, but he didn't respond.

"I told him after the game that he was messing with tradition. I asked him, 'Why didn't you text me?' He said, 'Because I was gonna kick your butt today.' I told him he should have texted me back, and the basketball Gods got you. But we all had a lot of fun tonight."

Dennis Knight covers sports for the Savannah Morning News. Contact him at Dknight@savannahnow.com. Twitter: @DennisKnightSMN

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Johnson edges Dougherty in basketball semifinal with friendly ties