All-Metro boys basketball player of the year Travis McKie today verbally committed to play at Wake Forest. McKie, a rising senior at John Marshall High School, averaged 21 points and 10 rebounds per game for the Justices. McKie is a 6-6 wing/power forward.

Without taking their eyes off each other, the students put pencil to paper and started drawing. Moments later, the table in the second-floor room of the Visual Arts Center was covered in simple line drawings of the four Richmond high school students.

The marquee college basketball coaches came to watch Travis McKie on a regular basis. North Carolina’s Roy Williams created a stir at Patrick Henry High School at the Colonial District tournament.

Williford waits his turn at AURichmonder happy assisting Jeff Jones as coach at American Jason Williford hopes his first job as a head coach is coming soon. For now, though, he could hardly be more content. Williford works for the man who was his basketball coach at the University of Virginia - Jeff Jones - and Williford has helped his mentor lift American to the top of the Patriot League. Moreover, Williford and his wife, Kwamina, also a U.Va. graduate, have a 2-year-old son, Austin, with another child on the way.

When William Brown thinks of his friend and former football teammate Corey D. Smith, Brown recalls perhaps the only contradiction in Smith’s life. “He didn’t eat seafood, but he enjoyed fishing,“ Brown said. Then Brown chuckled, ruefully, sadly. Mr. Smith was fishing Feb. 28 when the boat he and three other men were in capsized in turbulent waters of the Gulf of Mexico, about 30 miles off the Florida coast. Coast Guard and private searches found one survivor. Mr. Smith is presumed dead.

The previously undefeated Petersburg High School boys were eliminated in tonight’s last AAA state basketball semifinal. The Crimson Wave joined the John Marshall high school boys and the Cosby High School girls on the sidelines.

John Marshall’s Tahir Little took the last shot, a 3-point attempt that bounced off the rim, and the William Fleming Colonels held on to beat the John Marshall Justices 65-62 in the Group AAA semifinal this afternoon at the Siegel Center in Richmond. Justices senior guard Randall Ward hit a 3-point goal in the final minute to pull John Marshall within three, but the rally stopped there.

As much as Central Region fans would like to see Petersburg and John Marshall meet in the Virginia High School League Group AAA boys basketball tournament final Friday night, players and coaches know that won’t happen without semifinal victories.

Tickets are on sale at John Marshall High, Petersburg High and Cosby High for the schools’ semifinal games Wednesday in the Virginia High School League state Group AAA basketball tournament. Tickets cost $10 each. There are two sessions for Wednesday’s games. Each session requires a ticket. The game time for the John Marshall boys meeting with William Fleming of Roanoke has been moved up to 3:45 p.m. to accommodate the session break. It’s the last game of the morning/afternoon session. The Siegel Center will be cleared, then reopened for the Cosby girls’ game with Princess Anne (Virginia Beach) at 7 p.m. and Petersburg’s game with King’s Fork (Suffolk) at 9.

As John Marshall coach Frank Threatts said, “The guys have something to do next week.“ The Justices withstood tremendous defensive pressure and foul trouble to defeat T.C. Williams 72-61 before a noisy crowd of about 4,000 last night at Robinson Secondary School in a quarterfinal game of the Virginia High School League Group AAA tournament.

The top area high school teams in the state tournament will face Northern Virginia high schools in quarterfinal play tonight and tomorrow night.

The Central Region basketball tournament championship games originally were scheduled to be played Monday. That meant Petersburg and John Marshall had either four or five days before play commenced in the Virginia High School League state tournament depending on which team won and lost. Then it snowed. The title games were played Wednesday night. Petersburg (29-0) won 68-58 and earned the right to play tonight against Northern Region runner-up Hayfield (21-7). Game time is 8:45 p.m. at the Siegel Center.

Chris Evans’ soaring dunk late in the first quarter brought the house down. Travis McKie’s thunder jam just before the first-half buzzer raised the roof. From the start of last night’s Central Region tournament final at the Siegel Center, Petersburg and John Marshall kept the overflow crowd estimated at 8,500 entertained and in the game.

Chris Evans’ soaring dunk late in the first quarter brought the house down. Travis McKie’s thunder jam just before the first-half buzzer raised the roof. From the start of Wednesday night’s Central Region tournament final at the Siegel Center, Petersburg and John Marshall kept the overflow crowd estimated at 8,500 entertained and in the game.

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Detroit Lions defensive end Corey Smith and Oakland Raiders linebacker Marquis Cooper were among four boaters missing Sunday off Florida’s Gulf Coast, the Coast Guard and Smith’s agent said.