Derrik Nix ruled the basketball world in Michigan this season.
Nix, from the Class A state championship Detroit Pershing team, was named Mr. Basketball at the end of the season to take the honor symbolic of being the top player in Michigan.
Nix, who played at around 6-foot-9, 335 pounds last season, came into this season at 293 pounds. He averaged 15 points and 15 rebounds a game for the state champs.
He edged Ben Simons of Cadillac for Mr. Basketball. Other standouts contending for the honor were Korey VanDussen of Zeeland East, Dion Sims of Orchard Lake St. Mary's and Eso Akunne of Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard.
Pershing ended its season with a 90-73 title-game victory against Kalamazoo Central. Ironically, Nix only had four points in the title game. Teammate Keith Appling exploded for a championship-game state record 49 points.
Kalamazoo Central ended its season at 25-2 and was led by Devin Oliver with 21 points and Juwan Hemphill with 20 points.
Class B
Zeeland East entered the Class B title game at 27-0. But the Grand Rapids-area school lost 62-54 in the title showdown class to Flint Powers Catholic, led by Patrick Lucas-Perry with 25 points, including 11-of-12 in free throws. Patrick O'Brien had 12 points and 13 rebounds for the champs.
“Our strength of schedule was a big advantage for us,” said Flint Powers coach Tim Herman. “We played teams like Detroit Country Day and Orchard Lake St. Mary. We had a real tough high school schedule. We had three returning starters off last year's team.
“We had good people coming in and a good nucleus coming back. From the beginning of the year, we worked for the championship.”
Besides Lucas-Perry and O'Brien, another standout was Shane Moreland, who had three assists in the title game.
Lucas-Perry, Herman said, “is just a tough kid. He played in a lot of the big games. He was our assists leader. He handled the ball with very few turnovers.”
Shane Moreland averaged 17.5 points a game while Lucas-Perry had 15 points a game. O'Brien had 15.8 points a game.
“In our 28 games, we had four guys average in double figures,” Herman said. “We only had 10 turnovers a game. That's pretty good as a team.”
Class C
Like father like son.
Melvindale Academy prospered on 23 points and nine rebounds from Michael Talley III to defeat Schoolcraft 72-67 in the Class C state championship game.
Talley also had four assists.
Talley's dad is the coach of the team and a former Mr Basketball in 1989 from Detroit Cooley. Melvindale Academy ended its season at 25-2. Derek Lennen had 20 points and nine rebounds for Schoolcraft, 25-3.
Melvindale had a 28-17 scoring advantage in the final quarter. Delance Wilson had 15 points and 11 rebounds from off the bench.
Class D
C.J. Paquin has scored a lot of points in his fabulous varsity boys basketball career at Cedarville in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. But he wishes he would have had two more in his record book.
The Cedarville senior, named the Associated Press player of the year in Class D, had 25 points and 18 rebounds against Muskegon West Michigan Catholic in Saturday's Class D state championship game at Michigan State University's Breslin Center.
But a jumper by Paquin with one second to play missed and West Michigan Christian wound up as state champs with a 62-61 victory. Paquin was 8-of-29 from the floor while his team was 21-of-74 for 28.4 percent.
Evan Bruinsma led WMC with 18 points and 11 rebounds.
Cedarville ended the season at 25-2 and WMC was 24-4. The champs shot 20-of 51 from the floor for 39.2 percent.
DeMario Harris had the assignment to guard top Cedarville players including Paquin.
“We did really good,” Harris said. “I feel that we could have done more. But we're happy with what we had. A lot of people don't get this chance. We came into the season very much confident that we would do this.
“When it came down to the end of the game, I did what I had to do, stop No. 30 (Paquin). I just had to play defense. That's what I'm here for.”
“At the end, we had the guy who we wanted to shoot the ball,” said Cedarville coach David Duncan. “Give West Michigan credit. They took us out of what we like to do. And we took them out of what they want to do. It was a good game.”
Cedarville won the 2007 state title.
Paquin is “quick, a good rebounder and has good court skills,” Duncan said. “He anticipates things well.”
“I thought we overachieved this season. We lost four starters from last year,” Paquin said. “People didn't think we could get back here. But we did well.
“I would have liked to have won the state championship. I expected to make that last shot today.”
For his season, “I liked our overall team effort,” said Paquin who will play NCAA Division II college basketball at Lake Superior State or Northern Michigan next year.