Duckett commits to Whitman

St Joseph Notre Dame High senior guard Darné Duckett has experienced a pair of basketball moments very few prep hoops players can claim. They are winning two state championships as a member of the Pilots, the first 57-32 versus Renaissance Academy-Altadena in 2014 and the second coming two years later with a 55-50 victory over St. Bernard.

Now Duckett has plans in place for the next step having recently committed to Whitman College in Walla Walla, nicknamed "the town so nice they named it twice." The school is located in the southeastern part of Washington near the border with Oregon.

So why will Duckett being playing for the Blues? "The coach [Eric Bridgeland] really loves me. I visited last summer and they came at me hard. Coach has a guard-playing style and a get-the-ball-and-push mentality. My ability to get my teammates involved will help."

Bridgeland's team is 13-0 thus far this season after finishing 24-5 the season before, 20-6 prior to that and earlier 19-8. The Whitman program culture isn't solely focused on Northwest Conference championships but rather that and national DIII tournament appearances. A sweet 16 appearance in 2016 was the furthest any Whitman basketball team has gone.

Plus, having five school graduates playing professionally overseas, including one receiving an invitation to participate in the NBA Combine, also caught Duckett's attention. This is just eight years in for Bridgeland at the Whitman helm.

"They believe they can keep winning with me," Duckett offered. "It's a win-win situation for everyone."

As for a major, he said, "I like the idea of engineering but I'm not entirely sure."

Asked to detail his best moments on the court, Duckett offered two. "In a game in my freshman year, we were down by three with 0.6 seconds remaining. A teammate (Temidayo Yussuf) grabbed a rebound, threw the ball full court and it went in. That's the craziest shot I've ever seen in person." His second highlight: "it was last year in the state championship game after I had fouled out. Jadé Smith had the ball but got knocked down and our trainer ran out on the floor to him so he had to come out of the game. Coach put a freshman (Kobe Kiener) in to shoot the free throws. I was mad at myself, feeling I let my teammates down and there was me, Jadé and another teammate (Cameron Ba) not playing because of a broken arm, cheering on this freshman. It was exciting. He made both shots." Duckett scored all of his 14 points in the first half of the game.

Duckett was laudatory in thanking first his father and his mother -- "he's inspirational and pushed me to get me where I wanted to be even when I thought I couldn’t myself" -- plus a long line of coaches for helping him get to this point. Among those, St. Joseph Notre Dame Coach Don Lippi plus assistants John Musson, Eddie McBride -- "they don't sugarcoat anything" -- my Team Lillard AAU coaches, Coach Raymond Young, and Joe Fuca."