DeMatha closed the season as Alhambra champions for the second consecutive year, capping a 33-5 season that saw them fall just one title short - the 2019 WCAC crown - of pulling a repeat clean sweep of the WCAC, Maryland Private School and Alhambra titles.

“We ended on the right note,” Stags coach Mike Jones said. “We played probably the toughest schedule of any DeMatha Basketball Team.  At least since I’ve been the coach - and I’d say probably in our history - it’s the toughest schedule we’ve ever played. And our guys rose to the challenge. Obviously, my goal is always to win the WCAC - we did not do that, but we did not allow that to ruin our last two tournaments. And the fact that we can go out with two wins like that, that’s the way the seniors deserve to go out, and I could not be more happy and now we get to start working on the future.”

As is often the case, that future will involve replacing some key talent. Guards Justin Moore (Villanova), Jahmir Young (Charlotte) and Carsten Kogelnik (Brown) will graduate, along with guards Josh Wallace (UMass football), KJ Holton and wing Steve Settle.

For the Stags though, replacing high-level talent is nothing new.

"A couple of years ago we lost DJ Harvey, Ryan Allen, Josh Carlton, Jhabari Humbert and John McCrae, and we won the championship the following year," Jones said. "I mean, the years we lost Victor [Oladipo] and Jerian [Grant] and those guys, we won the championship the following year, so obviously we’ve returned some pretty good pieces, too. We’ve got some work to do, because Gonzaga’s going to be there, Paul VI is going to be there, St. John’s is going to be there, and then the teams that didn’t make it here this year - O’Connell, McNamara - our league is going to be pretty tough. Ireton is going to be really good next year.”

2020 center Hunter Dickinson and 2020 guard Earl Timberlake will lead the way for the Stags next year, and 2020 forward Paul Smith  will be counted on to become more involved.