Green's aggressive play drives Millbrook girls to state tournament
- By ROBERT NIEDZWIECKI | The Winchester Star
Senior point guard Maddie Green (33) has led Millbrook to three consecutive Class 4 state tournament berths. The unbeaten Pioneers face William Byrd at 5 p.m. on Friday in the quarterfinals at Shenandoah University.
- Ginger Perry/The Winchester Star
http://www.winchesterstar.com/content/tncms/live/#2
Maddie Green, who will play college basketball at James Madison next year, is averaging 15.8 points and 5.3 assists per game.
WINCHESTER — To say that it took a tremendous amount of drive and determination from Erick Green and Courtni Green to achieve what they have in basketball would be an extreme understatement.
But when it comes to the manner in which the most decorated male and female players in area history play the game, their father and Millbrook girls’ basketball coach Erick Green Sr. says even those two have to take a backseat to his third child.
“Maddie has a fire in her,” said Green Sr. of his James Madison University-bound senior point guard. “She reminds me of Bobby Hurley, who used to play [point guard] for Duke [in the 1990s].
“She plays the game with a passion. She plays hard. She gets after it. She gets in the opponents’ heads. She just frustrates people. That’s her identity. She plays like a pit bull. That was one of things that James Madison [head coach Sean O’Regan] loves about her. He loves her attitude. He doesn’t want a nice point guard. He wants a mean point guard. He wants someone who doesn’t back down from people, and she doesn’t back down from people.”
The 5-foot-9’s Maddie’s aggressive play on offense and defense is just as big a reason as any that Millbrook is undefeated at 25-0 and playing in its third consecutive state tournament.
The Region 4C champion Pioneers will take on Region 4D runner-up William Byrd (20-6) in the Class 4 state quarterfinals at 5 p.m. on Friday at Shenandoah University’s James R. Wilkins Jr. Athletics and Events Center. The winner will play the Loudoun Valley-Carroll County winner on March 5 or 6 at a site to be determined.
Maddie is averaging career-highs in points (15.8) and assists (5.3, an area-best) and is continuing her two-year transformation into being a better defensive player by averaging 4.4 steals (second to teammate Erika Reed among area public school players).
Green — a first team All-Northwestern District and All-Region 4C selection — will undoubtedly earn all-state honors for the second straight year upon the season’s conclusion, continuing the family tradition of state recognition.
The 26-year-old Erick is currently playing professionally with Valencia Basket in Spain, where he’s averaging 15.9 points per game in 21 EuroLeague games. He previously played in the NBA, was an All-American at Virginia Tech, and won two state titles in high school, including one at Millbrook in 2008 when he was the state’s Group AA Player of the Year.
Courtni (a 2012 Millbrook graduate, now a deputy sheriff in Loudoun County) won three state titles and three state Player of the Year awards for the Pioneers while scoring the third most points in state history. She went on to be an all-conference player at NCAA Division I Delaware.
As Erick Green Sr. points out, those two are tough acts to follow.
But Maddie’s desire to succeed just like them ever since she started playing around age 4 is part of what makes her such an effective and passionate player.
“I started watching them play when I was really young,” Maddie said. “When they were in the gym, I was in the gym. I just picked up the ball and started loving it.”
As Maddie got older, she developed her game by playing with Erick, Courtni and their friends.
Green Sr. said when Maddie was in fifth grade, she would play with Millbrook’s varsity players during their fall workouts, something she did for two years. Around that time she would also compete with Erick and the friends that he would bring home from Virginia Tech.
These workouts helped develop the dribbling skills she needed to be an effective point guard.
“It was hard for her to score, because they were so much bigger,” said Green Sr. of the workouts with the Millbrook varsity players. “But she could penetrate and kick the ball and find the open person. That helped her a lot, being able to practice against them.”
Maddie said she took a lot from going up against players like all-state point guard Sara Mead, who went on to play at NCAA Division I basketball at Columbia University.
“That was a great experience,” Maddie said. “[Mead] pushed me, and Courtni definitely pushed me. She wanted the best out of me.”
Talking to her siblings has always made a big difference too.
“Erick taught me a lot about making moves to the basket, how to get by my defender, how to use my off hand to get by people,” Maddie said. “[Erick] teaches me to be like [Oklahoma City Thunder point guard] Russell Westbrook, and have that [fiery] Russ mentality.”
While Westbrook can fill the basket in a big way (24.8 points per game this year), he also currently leads the NBA with 10.4 assists per game.
Maddie can certainly score (she surpassed 1,000 career points as a junior), but she loves being someone who can be versatile like Westbrook.
Green said she first began playing point guard about six years ago mainly because of how well Reed (47 percent from 3-point range this year) was developing as a shooter on their Winchester Rising Stars AAU team.
“I really didn’t want to do it at first,” Maddie said. “But then I learned to love it. I liked passing other people the ball, seeing them score, seeing them happy, and at the same I was scoring, too. It made me feel good to do both.”
Maddie arrived in high school three years after Courtni, a phenomenal scorer who recorded 2,626 career points and had three seasons averaging more than 25 points per game.
Maddie said over the years, there have been people who questioned why she didn’t score like Courtni. She said she couldn’t let that faze her though.
“Courtni’s job on her teams was to score,” Maddie said. “My job here is to pass the ball and get my teammates open, and score when I have to.”
She’s done all of that extremely well. Maddie’s 561 career assists have been surpassed by only four people on the Virginia High School League’s career assist list, and she’s gotten her teammates involved to the point that Reed, Amari Anthony and Haile McDonald also have more than 1,000 career points.
Just as important as her offense is the contributions that Maddie is making on defense, which was not her forte her first two years of high school.
“[Coaches] would kind of hide me [on defense],” said Maddie with a laugh. “That was kind of my weakness.
“But with my dad being coach, that’s what he believes in strongly. When I’m not rotating or pushing up on my man, he gets on me.”
Green Sr. said he demanded more of the entire team on defense when he took over the Millbrook head coaching position for the 2016-17 season, and he’s been pleased with how Maddie has developed. Maddie averaged 3.1 steals per game her first two years, and has recorded 4.5 per game the last two years.
“I think her big improvement is learning how to cover the floor,” Green Sr. said.
Green Sr. said her strides on defense have truly helped her with the Fairfax Stars, the AAU team she’s been with since eighth grade. Playing in elite tournaments all over the country, her experiences there are more indicative of the competition she’ll face next year when she’s at James Madison.
Green said early in her Fairfax career, she usually didn’t defend the opposing point guard, but when Millbrook’s season ended last year she started doing that because of her improvement on defense.
Maddie’s made her own mark as a great player, and Reed said she’s also been a great friend and teammate.
“Maddie is one of the best people I know,” Reed said. “I’m grateful to have grown up with her. She’s a great basketball player, and off the court she’s even better.”
All three Green siblings who have played at Millbrook were all-state players, and all three scored 1,000 career points before their junior years were finished.
Now, Green hopes the time has come for her to join her older siblings as state champions.
Maddie says she doesn’t remember much about the Millbrook boys’ 2008 state championship victory at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Siegel Center in Richmond, only that she hugged Erick after she watched him run in the tunnel after the game.
Maddie says Courtni’s three state title wins are pretty vivid, though. If the Pioneers do win it all this year, they will do so with an undefeated record, just like those teams did.
“I want to have a banner up, just like them,” Maddie said. “I remember Courtni’s state championship games, and she said those were the best times of her life. I can’t wait to get to VCU [for the state championship game] and experience that. That’s really driven me.”
Reed’s been playing with Maddie since they were in fourth grade, and she knows that Maddie is going to give everything she has to try and help Millbrook get the job done.
“Her leadership, and her aggressiveness,” said Reed when asked what she most admires about Green’s play. “She plays hard every time. She always brings her best.”
— Contact Robert Niedzwiecki at
rniedzwiecki@winchesterstar.com Follow on Twitter @WinStarSports1
