Advance boys basketball coach Bubba Wheetley looks on from the sidelines during a state quarterfinal game against Eminence on March 3, 2018, in Van Buren, Missouri.

End of era for Advance basketball as Hornets fall to Eminence in quarterfinal, Wheetley announces retirement

Josh Mlot
Josh Mlot
Sep 8, 2018 · 5 min read

This story was originally published in the Southeast Missourian on March 4, 2018. A year after making a run to the MSHSAA Class 1 state championship game, the Advance Hornets had a chance to get back to the final four against the team they eliminated a year earlier — Eminence. This time, Advance fell short, and coach Bubba Wheetley announced his retirement. This was the story that came out of that game. Wheetley, however, later reconsidered his retirement, and in the summer decided to return to the Advance bench.

VAN BUREN, Mo. — The last words that Bubba Wheetley spoke as Advance boys basketball coach came out breathy and squeaking. Nearly unintelligible.

What need not be spoken, though, was what they meant to Wheetley.

“It’s been a good ride,” he said.

Then the tears welled up, and he could only make his ravaged throat scratch out half the words.

“Those boys,” Wheetley said. “They brought it back. They brought Advance back.”

It is the end of an era for the Hornets.

There was disappointment and heartbreak Saturday, as Advance walked out of the Van Buren High School gym on the wrong end of a 78–62 loss to Eminence in a Class 1 quarterfinal. There will be no return trip to state.

But as Wheetley conducted his final interview after his final game, there was mostly pride in his voice. What was left of his voice, at least.

“Yeah. Well, I’m gone. I’m leaving,” Wheetley said. “[The players] knew that from the [start]. I still think they can come back. … We’re going to lose a lot and I ain’t saying we’re going to get back to this, but I still think they can win a district title next year. If they can get the kids to come out and want to play. If they stay in the gym and work, I think they can get back.”

Saturday’s game marked the end not only for Wheetley, who played for Advance in the 1970s and wears his pride in Hornets basketball on his sleeve and in his tattered vocal cords following a big game, but also for the main threads to this most recent era of Advance success.

Senior starters Armani Vermillion, Michael Hood and Carson Miles are the final vestiges of the core that traced back to the team’s state berth in 2015 — Vermillion saw minutes on that team — through last year’s final-four squad, when the trio made up two starters and half of the top six for a team that finished second in Class 1.

And so when the Hornets came up empty on Saturday, the players filtered out of the locker room quickly and with their eyes to the ground.

This chapter of Advance basketball has closed. It was often great and always thrilling.

And at the end, Wheetley, choked up and voiceless, offered up his perfect, final words.

“Anyway,” he said, “it’s been fun. It’s been fun.”

How it happened

Against Eminence — the team the Hornets defeated in last year’s quarterfinal and then again to open this season — Advance (24–7) didn’t rebound well enough and couldn’t take advantage of 22 Redwings turnovers.

Eminence (30–1) was willing to slow down the key three — Vermillion, Hood and Miles — keep them out of the paint and sacrifice some open 3-point looks from Advance’s role players. For a stretch Saturday, those looks fell and the Hornets had a chance, going into the final quarter tied at 49-all. But when the 3s stopped falling, a massive 44–17 deficit on the boards was too much to overcome.

Eminence controlled the fourth quarter and made sure it dictated when this extraordinary era of Advance basketball came to an end.

“It’s pretty obvious they were the better team,” Wheetley said. “They beat us on the boards — killed us on the boards. That’s the difference in this game.

“Our boys played hard. We played hard. The triangle-and-two hurt us pretty bad. We had open shots and we couldn’t make 3s either. We lived and died with ’em. That’s the way it goes.”

Advance shot well from 3-point range in the third quarter, going 4 of 9 from long range in the third quarter, and three straight 3s — two from Jack Below and one from Hood — tied the game up at 44-all.

A basket by Vermillion with 2:03 left in the third gave the Hornets their first lead, 46–44, since midway through the second period, and the game was tied at 49-all entering the fourth.

That’s when Eminence (30–1) asserted itself, opening the quarter on an 8–2 run that was capped by back-to-back 3-pointers from Ethan Drake and Kyndal Copeland for a 57–51 Redwings lead.

Advance never led again, outscored 29–13 in the final eight minutes.

“I think we handled the ball better in the fourth quarter,” Eminence coach Pete McBride said. “Part of that was we kept them out of the press because we played good defense and rebounded. … Then I felt like we attacked at the right times and got some easy baskets. Then we got some stops and started stretching the lead a little bit. That was big. Just getting stops.”

This time, it’s the Redwings headed to state.

The numbers

In his final performance in black and orange, Vermillion had 20 points and four assists. Hood had 10 points and four steals while Below came off the bench to score 11 points.

Advance was 23 of 59 (39 percent) from the field and 10 of 35 (28.6 percent) from 3-point range.

Three Redwings finished with double-doubles: Trent McBride (25 points,10 rebounds), Drake (12 points, 12 rebounds) and Grant Dyer (18 points, 11 rebounds).

Eminence shot 31 of 53 (58.5 percent) from the floor.

Eminence 17 13 19 29–78
Advance 15 11 23 13–62
EMINENCE (78) — Ethan Drake 12, Grant Dyer 18, Robert Keeling 2, Trent McBride 25, Wade Dyer 8, Kyndal Copeland 13. FG 31, FT 12–18, F 10. (3-pointers: Drake 3, Copeland. Fouled out: None.)
ADVANCE (62) — Wes Shelby 4, Braiden Brown 9, Carson Miles 2, Michael Hood 10, Armani Vermillion 20, Jack Below 11, Hunter Curtis 6. FG 23, FT 6–8, F 21. (3-pointers: Brown 3, Hood 2, Below 2, Curtis 2, Vermillion. Fouled out: Miles.)

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