Saturday night's 6A finale featured a pair of big-name guards, as Duncanville and senior Deja Kelly took on Cypress Creek and junior Kyndall Hunter. While the game itself ended up going Duncanville's way in fairly comfortable fashion, 63-47, both players showed up huge for their teams.
Earlier this weekend, I looked at standout performances from the first four state title games. Right now, I want to focus solely on the standout performances of Kelly and Hunter in the 6A game. What they did, what we learned about them, and — in Hunter's case — what can we learn about her team's chances of making it back here next season.
Deja Kelly — Duncanville
Let's start with Kelly.
This was the final game of Kelly's high school career and her first appearance in the state championship game. Kelly left San Antonio with the 6A title game MVP award, and her play on Saturday shows why.
Kelly got off to a bit of a slow start, but the senior — who head coach LaJeanna Howard called "Mamba Princess" after the game — finished with 23 points on 5-for-16 shooting. She seemed to always be drawing a foul, finishing 12-for-15 from the line, and she added five rebounds and a pair of assists.
One thing you notice when you watch Deja Kelly play is how she seems to do everything within the flow of Duncanville's offense. In the two games that I watched her in during the tournament, Kelly managed to do a ton of impressive things, but all of those impressive things felt like they existed inside some kind of structure. Kelly was methodical about her play, even when she was pushing forward on the fastbreak. She knows where she needs to be and where the ball needs to be, and maybe more importantly knows when the Pantherettes need her and the ball to simultaneously be together.
Kelly's ability to play with the ball in her hands and not in her hands should help her succeed in Chapel Hill next year.
On this play, for instance, we see Kelly bring the ball up the floor and snake her way in for the contested floater. Kelly isn't Duncanville's point guard, but her skillset means that she can get out on the run on plays like this, and she's able to find space in the defense and make things happen. Saturday saw Kelly miss a few of these kinds of looks near the basket, but you can probably chalk a lot of that up to the tenacious defense that Kyndall Hunter played on Kelly, as Cy Creek wanted to put its best player on Duncanville's best player. (It's probably worth noting that Kelly didn't guard Hunter on the other end, with Duncanville instead letting Kelly conserve some energy on that end of the floor, which likely contributed to Kelly's ability to keep a fairly consistent energy level on offense throughout this game.)
Kelly can also shoot, by the way:
I love this kind of play. Kelly is the inbounder here, and Cy Creek isn't really guarding the inbounder like they should, so Kelly is able to sneak around, get the ball back from Hope LeMelle, and then lift up for the three-pointer. Great play. Great result.
The Pantherettes will have a tough time replacing Deja Kelly next year, but the rest of Duncanville's rotation will return, and on Saturday night we might have witnessed a new star in the making, with freshman guard Tristen Taylor finishing second on the team in scoring with 13 points. And Kelly will have to figure out how to adjust to the college level, but she'll have a good chance to play a key role for UNC right off the bat.