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By TYLER RALEY | Staff Writer

After the buzzer sounded inside the Dunn-Oliver Acadome on Thursday, Feb. 13, the Briarwood Christian Lions walked off the court having just had their season ended in the Sweet 16 and everybody gutted about what happened in that game.

Almost nine months later though, the Lions are ready to tip off another season of basketball. More importantly though, it’s a time when they are ready to build off the momentum they built last year—a bout of momentum that was historic.

“Every year brings its new challenges and we’re kind of going through some uncharted territory at Briarwood,” said Briarwood Christian head coach Jeremy Mears. “Last year, after a 25-year drought, we made it to the Sweet 16, and so just having that success has made us a little more hungry, a little more passionate and we want to get back to the Sweet 16 and hopefully make an even deeper run in the playoffs this year,”

Those feelings have been with the entire team for since the summer, and with a core group of veterans returning to the court, there is a lot of opportunity for Briarwood Christian to capitalize on what it did in the 2024-25 season.

For senior point guard Drew Mears, it is his final run with the squad, one he feels like can be special come the final stretch.

“(I’ve) been looking forward to it since June,” Drew said. “I thought we had an encouraging run in June. We competed really well with some good teams, and last year, kind of left the season with a bad taste in our mouth. I felt like we could have gone further, but this year, man, we’re looking forward to it. We’re ready, and we’ve got some good chemistry.” 

Drew leads the Lions back on the hardwood after having been an All-State Second Team selection in Class 5A and on the All-County First Team. He recorded 19.4 points per game and shot 41 percent from the field as a junior, and looks to be reliable threat from 3-point range after having shot 36 percent from deep last season.

Outside of the star guard, Briarwood will have three other seniors on the floor this year in Eli Thompson, Zeke Witt and Charlie Caldwell, who will all group together to be leaders throughout the season.

A challenge will lie though in the fact that the Lions will be without six players for the first game of the season and possibly a couple of more due to the school’s football team being in the Class 5A state playoffs. As a result, Jeremy Mears said that what happened over the course of the summer was what they used as their preseason, getting the guys who will be available ready and familiar with the offense in time for when the games come.

That offense will be filled with a lot of action and a lot of movement, heavily trying to find a way to get the needle pointed to the side of Briarwood and taking advantage of any available scoring opportunities.

“We want to get the ball out and run,” Jeremy said. “We use the phrase, ‘We want to win our race, we want to get to space and play with pace.’ When we do that, we can hopefully get those advantages, we call them dominoes, get those advantages going and try to force some long closeouts, try to get paint touches and try to get uncontested 3’s and get those backboard touch layups that we call them.”

The head coach added that this team, from a scoring production perspective, is returning its three top 3-point shooters, as well as its leading scorer, meaning the potential is high for the offense to be a dangerous component to the product on the court.

After losing the area championship last year and then rallying to make it to the Sweet 16, the Lions have a high expectation to meet this season as far as getting back into the state playoffs.

However, now that Briarwood made it back to the Sweet 16 for the first time in 25 years, Jeremy Mears wants to make sure his team finds ways to stay consistent, and that starts in setting the team’s goals.

“One thing I’ve done a little differently this year is kind of reverse engineered things, and I’ve kind of pictured, all right, where do we want to be in February? What kind of team do we want to be?” Jeremy said. “Basketball, it’s a tough sport to play. It’s a long season. We want to make memories along the way and just enjoy those wins along the way, and a lot of times, our wins aren’t in outcomes—it’s developing these relationships. I really, really value the relationships that I get to share with these great young men, and we want to be transformational teammates, want to be a transformational coach and that comes with developing those memories.”

The challenges come already in facing a team like the Sylacauga Aggies twice, who won Class 5A, Area 8 last year and finished as the Class 5A runner-up to Vigor. Them, along with Shelby County and Central Clay County make up the area. Outside of them, the Lions will face challenges like Mountain Brook, Helena and Prattville throughout the beginning stretch.

Briarwood will first handle a long road stretch that will last until Dec. 2, when it plays its first home game. The Lions will take the court for the first time on Thursday, Nov. 6, when they hit the road to take on the American Christian Academy Patriots at 7 p.m.