DaytonDailyNews.com

ST. PARIS — Wrestling and basketball appear to have little in common. At Graham High School, however, the sports are intertwined to an extent that makes athletic director and boys basketball coach Brook Cupps smile.

Cupps credits the school's wrestling success — Graham has been a national power for years — in helping to elevate a basketball program that had not won so much as a district championship since 1972.

Graham takes a 26-0 record into its Division II state semifinal Thursday, March 13, against Toledo Libbey at the Schottenstein Center.

"Wrestling has benefited basketball," Cupps said. "My players have close friends on the wrestling team, and they've learned a lot from them about commitment and sacrificing for a worthwhile goal.

"That's carried over to my sport. When I'm hard on them, they don't have anyone to whine to, because they know what those (wrestlers) go through. It's helped our guys."

Libbey, a D-I school until this year, features 6-foot-4 Ohio State-bound guard William Buford, whose 20 points keyed a 65-51 regional-final victory over Lexington.

Make Libbey the favorite if you will, but Graham has been slaying giants the past few weeks, from Cincinnati Taft to Canal Winchester to Alter, beating the best D-II teams from Cincinnati, Columbus and Dayton. Thursday's winner plays for the championship Saturday against the Poland Seminary/Chillicothe survivor.

"We just need to be true to ourselves," Cupps said. "Our kids are very poised."

5 things to know

1. Juniors Josh Schuler and Austin Jones, Graham's top two scorers, played extensively as freshmen on a team that went 15-9. "We took some heat for that," Cupps said, "but now it looks like a pretty good decision."

2. Graham has not played a minute of zone defense this season, preferring man-to-man. "If they stay man, physically they might have a matchup problem," Libbey coach Leroy Bates warned.

3. Libbey, 23-2 overall and ranked fourth in the final D-II state poll, played at the Schott in the Ohio Prep Classic the past two seasons. "Hopefully, it'll give us a little advantage, a little ease, having been there," Bates said.

4. Buford, who verbally committed to OSU in September, has 2,009 career points. In describing his best player, Bates said, "He's not a loud, boisterous kind of person. You don't see him in the halls doing all kinds of nonsense."

5. Graham's tallest player, Ethan Ward, stands 6-3. "We're sneaky," Cupps said.

He said it

"It's absurd to an extent. You would have thought the president was here. We had a police escort and a caravan. I had nothing to do with it. It wasn't really our goal to just win the district." — Cupps on how crazy it got in two-stoplight St. Paris after Graham won the district title.