By Tabitha Evans Moore, EDITOR & PUBLISHER

It’s Saturday, March 22 at The Murphy Center on the campus of Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) and Lynchburg native Greg Tipps and his Loretto High School (LHS) Mustangs are attempting to do something that’s never been done. If they win, they will be the first public school to win a TSSAA 2A Boys Basketball title in over 15 years. They’re also trying to meet their pre-season goals to not only bring the gold ball back to Lawrence County but also to earn a perfect season. Standing in the way are the back-to-back state champs, the Alcoa Tornadoes.

It’s spring break at LHS, so the student section seems a little thin, but in their place are a sea of Mustangs fans – many with no association to the school who’ve become fans over the course of the season thanks to X Sports Network’s live broadcasts of all 34 of the Mustang’s wins to this point. Many sitting behind the Mustang bench travelled from Moore County. A local boy’s about to plant a flag, and they want everyone to know he originally wore Columbia blue.

With 22 seconds to play, Alcoa sophomore Condis Cherry goes backdoor and scores an easy layup to tie the game at 61-61. Coach Tipps calls timeout, and gives his team the plan. He’s animated but focused – with just 10 seconds the Mustangs will get one, maybe two shots. Following the timeout, Loretto’s Kasen Buie goes up with the fadeaway jumper but it hits the rim – sending the state title game into overtime.

As the TV camera pans to Coach Tipps, he locked in – the picture of steady confidence. The two teams play tit-for-tat basketball for much of the four minutes, then Jaxson Roberson heads to the line with 8.4 seconds to play. He makes one of two to give the Mustangs a narrow 68-66 lead. The Tornadoes have been here before, and they know just what to do, but as the clock drains, Loretto’s Corben Reynolds blocks another shot by Cherry to secure a 68-66 overtime victory, the state title, and a perfect season.

As the buzzer sounds, Coach Tipps finds his wife, Paige, for a quick hug before joining his team who are over-the-moon with both relief and pride. His team trailed by eight at the half but held the Tornadoes to just eight points in the third period to manage one hell of a second half comeback. It’s a game that will be talked about for years.

“When you give a team like that an eight-point lead, things get a little wobbly,” he tells the sideline reporter. “But these guys showed a lot of grit. I’m so proud of them, their families, and our community.”

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It all started in Lynchburg.

One could draw a straight line from a Lynchburg Christmas morning to lifting the gold ball in the Murphy Center. Coach Tipps says he asked his grandparents, Doug and Nancy Tipps, for a basketball goal for Christmas when he was in second grade, and like most grandparents, they dutifully obliged.

“I think it shocked my parents because they didn’t know I had any interest in basketball. No one in the Tipps family played basketball, and I think my dad thought I was too short, but I just immediately fell in love with the sport,” Coach Tipps says.

An at-home basketball goal led to Lynchburg Junior Pro and then AAU Basketball. He eventually earned a spot as the Moore County High School Raider’s guard under Coach Billy Mooney. There were basketball camps at Motlow State and David Lipscomb University where he met greats like Joe Gaskin and Don Meyers. Following high school, he’d eventually return to MCHS to serve as an assistant coach under John Wilde.

Tipps says along the way, he learned about the sport from those coaches who made an indelible mark on him. In Lynchburg Junior Pro, he learned from Steve Fanning and Billy Martin that the final score doesn’t matter. What matters is how hard you play. Coach Mooney taught him to play smart and with a team focus.

“He was such a good in-game coach, and he was very good at making adjustments,” Coach Tipps says. “He also had a very common-sense approach to the game that made it really easy to play and later coach.”

At a Motlow State camp, Bucks Head Coach Gaskins taught him that natural ability and height are great but that’s it’s attitude that really matters.

“Coach Gaskin wrote me a letter following camp one year. In it, he told me that my attitude would determine my altitude … not how tall I was. I never forgot that.”

He said he also learned from a host of Moore County Raiders that came before him – players like Chris Bateman, Aaron Taylor, the O’Neal brothers, Gary Eady, Marcus March, Joel Gregory, Kevin Eady, and Lavon King, who he considers to be his best friend, as well as the guys he played with like Jeff Norman, Andrew Martin, Brad Wilkerson, and Jason Waggoner.

Coach Tipps says all those influences blend together into a code that gets honored on his basketball court.

“They also taught me that there’s a right and a wrong way to act when you are on the court and I try to instill that into my players,” Coach Tipps says. “Our players are yes ma’am, no sir kids. They treat teachers and other students with respect.”

Big goals require work ethic

The Mustangs set big goals for the 2024-25 season. They didn’t just want to win another state championship. They wanted to play perfect and earn the reputation of being the best sports team to ever come out of Lawrence County. It was a lofty goal.

“It’s not just Loretta High School here. We also have Summertown and Lawrence County High School here too. Those are very talented programs. They wanted to be known as the best sports team that’s ever come through here,” Coach Tipps explains. “But that was awesome because it gave us something to coach around. We explained that if you’re going to have those kinds of goals, then we’re going to have to work super, super hard because your goals and your work ethic must match.”

Coach Tipps says he knew this year’s Mustang team possessed enough talent to meet their goals early on, and that they seemed to possess the right attitude to persevere down the stretch.

“We set incredibly high expectations for them, and they seemed to relish in meeting them.”

Like all head coaches everywhere, Coach Tipps allowed himself to celebrate his state title victory for a couple of weeks and now it’s on to the next season. Afterall, he’s not just in the business of coaching winning basketball teams, he’s also in the business of creating good men.

“It’s what small town basketball is all about – it’s about raising the next generation of good men. They’re going to be pillars of this community. I think we have a really good culture here.”

In the end, that’s what Coach Tipps says is his “why” for coaching basketball.

“It’s very rewarding to watch players mature on and off the floor with discipline and direction. I enjoy the life lessons that can be taught through the game that help them be better people.”

It just doesn’t happen.

On Thursday, Coach Tipps and the Loretto Mustang basketball team are headed to the State Capitol in Nashville to be recognized on the Senate floor. It’s the first time in nearly 18 years that any Tennessee boys basketball team from any school went undefeated to win the state title. It’s a big deal.

“It just doesn’t happen,” Coach Tipps says.

They also plan a Celebration of Perfection on April 13 at the Keestone Resort and Spa in Loretto. It’s open to the public and attendees will get to relive the state championship game with the players. It will be hosted by Nashville Sports Radio personality George Plaster. To learn more about the event, click here. •

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