DALLAS — Once again, the boys from the "Great" James Madison High School are dancing in March.
"To be honest, this team had been waiting 365 days for that opportunity," said head boys basketball coach Damien Mobley.
The Trojans are back in the state tournament, after defeating Tatum in the Region II final and thereby avenging last year's playoff loss.
"Yeah, that hurt bad [last year]," senior Pierre Hunter admitted. "Made me real angry and vengeful. I was just ready to play this season."
Coach Mobley has led the Trojans to three state championships during his 15 years at Madison -- five if you don't count the two titles (2013, 2014) that were forfeited due to an ineligible player.
"Every year, it feels like we're building something different," Mobley said. "And they keep succeeding. They keep reaching those expectations that are put in front of them."
There is one state championship left unclaimed, though: 2020.
Two years ago, Madison reached the Class 3A state final. But the UIL postponed, and later cancelled, the state tournament due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
That year, the Trojan seniors returned to campus frustrated, unsure if they had played their last high school game.
Alas, they had.
"[It's] just motivating to know it's another day, another year, even though 2020 didn't work out for us," Mobley asserted.
Hunter was on that team in 2020. Then a sophomore and now a senior, the Weber State football commit is motivated to finish what he and his teammates started two-plus years ago.
"We feel it," Hunter said. "Every time we step in the building, we feel like the underdogs. We come to prove a point that we're just as good as any other school that has the five-stars [recruits] and all that."
Dallas Madison (35-6) will face City View (Wichita Falls) in the Class 3A state semifinals on Thursday, 1:30 p.m. from the Alamodome in San Antonio.