While making history, Cobb County stamps itself as Georgia basketball mecca

Cobb County boys basketball teams have won four of the past seven state titles in the highest class and two more in lower classifications, but what’s happening Saturday at Georgia State represents the zenith for Cobb, or any Georgia county.

Four Cobb teams — Hillgrove, McEachern, Pebblebrook and Wheeler — are in the Class 6A semifinals.

This marks only the second time one county has qualified four semifinalists in one class of the state tournament. In 1967, Atlanta schools Carver and Northside and Fulton County schools Russell and Headland made the Class 2A boys semifinals.

The Cobb teams are the first from the same school system. Cobb County Schools athletic director Don Baker sounded like a proud mayor this week.

“Exciting times for sure,” Baker said. “Achievements like this are truly a community victory, representing the collective pride and support that makes Cobb County athletics so special.”

Coaches were rightly proud, too.

“Let’s start it off by saying, ‘Let’s go Cobb,’” said Pebblebrook’s George Washington, whose Falcons are in the semifinals for the seventh time in his 15 seasons. “Cobb basketball has been a household name for some time now in basketball. Again this year someone in Cobb will win that state championship in the highest classification.”

Cobb was already Georgia’s modern hotbed of boys basketball, but the point cannot be argued Saturday, when McEachern plays Wheeler and Pebblebrook plays Hillgrove. Walker, a Marietta private school, is a fifth Cobb boys team in the boys semifinals, playing Holy Innocents’ in Class 3A-A Private in Athens.

Cobb’s basketball legacy can be found in today’s NBA. There are 22 former Georgia high school players in the league this year, according to Basketball-Reference.com. Eight played at Cobb schools, seven from the four schools in the 6A semifinals.

McEachern claims four of them — Isaac Okoro, Ace Bailey, Dylan Cardwell and Sharife Cooper. Okoro and Bailey were top-five NBA draft picks and former AJC all-class players of the year. Okoro and Cooper, also a former AJC player of the year, led McEachern to a 32-0 finish in 2019.

Wheeler alumni include Jaylen Brown, an MVP candidate with the Celtics this season, and Isaiah Collier, a former consensus No. 1 national recruit. Both were AJC players of the year after leading Wheeler to state titles.

Pebblebrook graduate Collin Sexton was a top-10 draft pick in 2018. He led Pebblebrook to one of its runner-up finishes in 2016.

The eighth NBA player from Cobb is Scoot Henderson from Kell.

“This is just a testament to the level of basketball being taught, coached, trained and played in Cobb County,” McEachern coach Tremayne Anchrum said. “And that’s not just the high school coaches. We have rec ball coaches, middle school coaches, AAU coaches, trainers and committed parents. When you couple that with the support we receive from our County AD and local ADs, it’s just a recipe for success.”

Before taking over for Mike Thompson in 2021, Anchrum was a longtime AAU coach who helped developed the Celtics’ Brown. Anchrum led McEachern to a runner-up finish in 2024. This year’s team, ranked No. 2 behind Wheeler, might be his best.

Anchrum calls his junior guard Chase Lumpkin the “best player in the state.” Lumpkin is the consensus No. 56 recruit for the class of 2027, per 247Sports, and averages 27.6 points and 9.8 rebounds per game.

Wheeler’s coach is Larry Thompson, who succeeded Doug Lipscomb in 2017. Lipscomb won six state titles. Lipscomb’s best player, until perhaps Brown, was longtime NBA star Shareef Abdur-Rahim, who launched the Wheeler dynasty in the 1990s.

Thompson is on the brink of his fifth title. Wheeler’s 10 are the most of any school since World War II.

This year’s Wheeler team, ranked No. 13 nationally by MaxPreps, has three major Division I signees (Colben Landrew to Clemson, Amare James to Clemson and Jaron Saulsberry to Ole Miss) and a top-50 national junior prospect, point guard Kevin Savage III.

Hillgrove, just 3 miles from McEachern in Powder Springs, is the emerging program of the group. Gregory Moultrie is in his fifth year as head coach. He came from South Cobb, where he’d reached two semifinals and won four region championship in 10 seasons.

Hillgrove is in the semifinals for the first time since 2013. Hillgrove’s Asa Montgomery is a top-75 national junior prospect.

Pebblebrook hired Washington in 2011, when the Mableton school had little basketball tradition. Pebblebrook is now a consistent winner, advancing to the round of 16 or better every season since 2014.