Road to the Big House: Pascagoula Panthers restore state tournament tradition

Before last season, the Pascagoula boys basketball team had been a mainstay in the state tournament, but a disappointing first round loss ended its six year run in Jackson. This year, the Panthers are making their return to the Big House.
On Saturday, they turned heads with a 67-54 road victory at Biloxi, punching their ticket back to the Metro for the seventh time in the last eight seasons. Pascagoula looks to make its mark in a quarter-final matchup against Greenville with eight seniors leading the charge.
Having won nine out of their last 10 games, the Panthers are still feeding off of last year’s letdown as motivation. Small Forward Jayden McCorvey said, “We know we got upset last year, we came up short. We’ve just really been thinking about last year and we know we had some get back.”
Pascagoula Head Boys Basketball Coach Lorenzo Wright said, “The initial feeling was just basically relief, cause we dropped the ball last year. Lost to Gautier in the district tournament and then lost to Provine in the first round of the tournament, wasn’t what we were supposed to be. We had come off six years in a row of getting to Jackson, and it was really sweet just to get back after that win against Biloxi.”
The Panthers will tip things off with Greenville in the Elite 8 at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday.