Dothan's Dowd, Bynum earn Dothan Eagle boys basketball honors

A 27-5 record and a Class 7A state semifinal appearance were both bests in the school’s brief four-year history and ranks among the top five by a city team in the long history of Dothan athletics.

Two of the main reasons for the highly-successful season were Thomas Dowd and Jeremy Bynum.

Dowd, a versatile 6-foot-7 senior who could play outside or inside, led the Wolves with a double-double of 18.5 points and 12.2 rebounds along with 1.6 steals, 1.5 assists and 1.5 block shots a game.

Bynum, in his first year as head coach, turned around a Wolves program that had two straight losing seasons, including 12-18 last year, and built an instant winner that nearly won the state title.

The success by Dowd and Bynum has earned the two the Dothan Eagle Player and Coach of the Year awards for the 2022-23 boys basketball season.

Once a soccer star, now a basketball standoutAs a seventh grader, Thomas Dowd thought soccer was his best sport.

He played that sport on the high school junior varsity team and in summer travel ball. At the same time, he didn’t even make the Carver Middle School basketball team.

“I used to consider myself more of a soccer player than a basketball player,” recalled Dowd.

Though he was a decent size in seventh grade, he began to grow in height a year later and began to improve as a basketball player. Soon basketball became his sport.

“In eighth grade, I began to grow a lot and that is when I kind of shifted from soccer to basketball,” Dowd said.

Now four years later, Dowd has grown to 6-foot-7 and has worked on his game to become a Troy University basketball signee.

Dowd hit 47.8 percent from the floor this season, 69.7 percent on free throws and a respectable 37.9 percent on 3-pointers, knocking down 69 3-pointers on the year (2.2 per game). While those numbers are solid, Bynum was more impressed with his senior’s rebounding ability.

“I believe more than anything what we will miss about him is his motor to rebound the basketball,” Bynum said. “He has a special knack for that. That is not something that I taught him. I don’t think anybody taught him. He has a natural gift for chasing down rebounds.

“Even when you look at some of these guys who have a bunch of money playing in the NBA that are not great scorers, they get rebounds and they rebound outside of their area. Thomas averaged 12 rebounds and I would say six of them (per game) were outside his area where he chased them down and outhustled people (to the spot).”

Dowd said his rebounding began to develop the summer after his sophomore season.

“I was on a real good travel ball team and my dad told me that everybody on the team was just as good as me, but you can be the best rebounder and the best defender on the team, so I kind of took pride in going to get rebounds,” Dowd said, especially working on offensive rebounds.

“Going to get an offensive rebound is probably the easiest way to score because in most cases you are already at the rim when you get it.”

In working on rebounding, Dowd focused on the path of shots and said he became efficient at reading the potential carom off shots.

“I feel I can read the ball if it (the shot) is going long or if it is going short,” Dowd said. “I feel I have a good knack for where the ball is going to go.”

While scoring and rebounding numbers jump out most, Dowd said he loves to play defense as much as the other aspects.

“I feel I am one of those guys that can play any positon on the floor, whatever the team needs me to be playing,” Dowd said of his game. “I pride myself on being able to guard the ball one through five. I feel I can guard anyone on the court. I have a good combination of height and quickness. I like to shoot the 3-ball, but I definitely can get downhill (to the basket) and I like my mid-range game a lot. I definitely got better at finishing at the hoop this year.”

Dowd said winning this year’s player of the year honor was special to him.

“It definitely means a lot. It was one of the goals I set for myself, but at the same time I am at point where I am expecting that from myself,” Dowd said. “To be Super 12 at all is a great accomplishment, but if I wasn’t able to get player of the year, I would have seen that as a disappointment on myself because I feel that is a standard I hold myself up to.”

In addition to that individual honor, Dowd wanted to help Dothan win a state title and earn first team all-state in Class 7A. Both of those came up just short as the Wolves reached the state semifinals and he was named second-team all-state.

He also wanted to reach 1,000 career rebounds, a feat he accomplished by finishing with 1,011. He also finished with 1,259 career points.

“He is one of the better kids I have coached on and off the court, showing up and doing the things the right way all the time,” Bynum said. “He is a great leader on and off the court, a great example for the kids. He is one of the those kids that you know will be successful in life, whether it is basketball or something else because he lives life the right way and does the right things and believes in the right things.”

With basketball in his future in college, Dowd had to make a difficult decision to not participate on Dothan’s soccer team this spring. He has to report for Troy basketball on May 27, just seven days after graduation.

“To get where I need to be, I just didn’t think I could fit in soccer at the same time,” said Dowd, who said he has been busy in the weight room trying to gain weight for college and continuing to work on his basketball skills.

He said Troy coaches have indicated he will likely play a lot his first year.

“I love to be able to be on the Sun Belt freshman team or even Sun Belt Freshman of the Year, but that being said, I know there is so much work ahead of me that I have to put in for that to happen,” Dowd said.

Bynum changes the cultureAfter being hired last spring after coaching at Mae Jemison in north Alabama, Bynum knew he had to change the culture of the Class 7A Wolves program.

“When I first took over the job, it was a very intriguing situation, going back over the times,” Bynum said. “Even before they combined schools, you would hear about the good athletes Dothan would have or Northview would have.

“Once they combined schools, I don’t think they had the success most people thought they would have for whatever reasons. It was an intriguing opportunity for me to come in to try and see if I could build it and change the culture and add accountability and ownership to the kids.

“Some people were pulling me saying it was not a good job or was iffy, but I wanted the challenge of changing the culture and develop some kids and see if what I believe in works on the 7A level.”

He succeeded in that mission in his first season.

“The biggest thing is we had a bunch of guys on the team that were unselfish,” Bynum said. “They put their pride to the side. We ask coming out of the locker room, ‘What is the most important thing?’ We all said a win. You had enough guys on that team who didn’t care about stats and didn’t care about who got the shot. They just wanted to win. That is one of the things that is most special about this group.”

It took a while to get there, admitted Bynum.

“To be honest, I thought we had a lot of work to do,” Bynum said of his initial thoughts during the first summer workouts. “I thought the kids didn’t really understand how to play basketball. They were very hesitant. They weren’t very confident basketball players.

“Our first play date (in the summer) was up in Auburn and we played Scottsboro in our first game and they handed it to us. I got the kids over to the corner (after the game) and said, ‘Hey, that is how we want to play.’ They played fast and shot a bunch of threes. I said, ‘That is what we are trying to get to.’

“From that point on, you could see people start buying in and turning the corner. Everybody didn’t do it at the same time. It wasn’t an easy thing. We pushed and pulled and got to the point where everybody started to believe.”

He said there were several turning points during the season.

After winning seven of the first eight to open the season, the Wolves lost on back-to-back days in early December to Jeff Davis and to Huffman and Bynum had a long conversation after the second loss. Dothan responded with a long winning streak to late January that included winning the Downtown Dothan Hoops Classic.

“We lost two games back-to-back and after that won 13 games in a row and I felt something was clicking then,” Bynum said.

Included in the stretch was a comeback win over Eufaula after trailing by 14 points that Bynum felt was big.

“The way we finished that game was a huge thing for us,” Bynum said.

The winning streak ended with a loss to eventual Class 5A state runner-up Charles Henderson on the road. Even that was a turning point, said Bynum.

“By that point, we were kind of on our high horse and almost feeling invincible. That woke us up,” Bynum said.

The Wolves finished the regular season with three straight wins then won the area tournament with Dowd hit a buzzer-beating shot to beat Enterprise 45-44 in the finals.

They rolled in two South Regional Tournament games, beating Mary G. Montgomery 50-32 and Baker 72-51 to reach the state semifinals before losing to eventual state champion Hoover 53-41.

Bynum thanked God, his family, coaches and players for receiving the Dothan Eagle Coach of the Year honor.

“First and foremost, you don’t get this kind of honor without having God as part of your life,” Bynum said. “I am thankful for my family as they allow me to spend a lot of time with my other kids (the players) being away from home. That is special to me that I have that kind of support at home.

“This award isn’t just for me, but for the players I have and my coaching staff who also has spent a lot of time away from their families to help our kids develop, so I am thankful for the support I have around me. It is a great honor to have.”