Smith High assistant named Southeast Guilford boys basketball coach
Brent Hinson was scrolling through his phone during halftime of the NBA Finals' Game 2 on June 5 when he saw an email from the Southeast Guilford administration. He was speechless. So speechless that he dropped his phone, looked up to the sky and said, "Thank you."
Hinson, an assistant during Smith boys basketball's historic run, was introduced as Southeast Guilford's boys basketball Thursday evening in a meeting held at the school's media center.
Hinson, a former Bethany Community head coach, replaces Corey Muirhead, who became Caldwell's boys basketball head coach on April 14. Under Muirhead, the Falcons went 82-183 overall and 49-91 in the conference, from 2015-2026, including this past season's mark of 8-19 overall and 5-5 in the TAAC Six 5A/6A Conference.
"I've been doing this since 2010 - 16 years of coaching," Hinson said, "and the pinnacle is to be able to be a head coach at the high school level or at the college level, and I'm able to hit one of those marks being the new coach here at Southeast Guilford High School."
Shaun Abernathy, the Southeast Guilford athletics director, called Hinson the perfect person to help revitalize Southeast basketball.
"He is very captivating," Southeast athletics director Abernathy said. "He can capture the room, he is very honest and straightforward and has the best interest of student-athletes in mind.
"Every reference and every person that I talked to - I talked to fellow ADs at my AD meeting, ‘Hey, I've got this opening, who do you think would be it?' And they said, ‘Has Coach Hinson applied?' and sure enough, he had, so I had that going in that he would be a good option, and once he got in front of us, he just blew us away.
"He has the background, he is very humble, he does a lot of things in the community, he has some big ideas to help revitalize the basketball program, and I think he will work very well with coach (Daijah) Faucette on the women's side as well, so we can have a cohesive basketball program."
During his time at Smith, the Golden Eagles went a combined 77-15 overall, 37-5 in conference, at his alma mater with one regular season conference championship, two conference tournament championships and state playoff trips to at least the elite eight in all three seasons while working under head coach Derrick Partee.
In 2024-25, the Golden Eagles went 29-3, setting a program record for most wins in a season while capturing their first-ever state championship. In 2025-26, they achieved an undefeated conference title for the first time and finished in the elite eight for the second time in three seasons.
Hinson joins a group of Partee proteges who have become head coaches in recent years. Irvin Turner went to TW Andrews after the 2022-23 season and Josh Chavis went to Northeast Guilford after the 2023-24 season.
"First of all, to be a great head coach, you have to be a great assistant," Hinson said. "I've had that experience of being a head coach before at Bethany Community School between 2019 and 2022, and when that door was shut, Coach Partee extended an invitation to be able to join his staff, and when he was able to do that, even though I had the experience of being the head coach, there is nothing with being able to scale back and become an assistant coach because it allows you to learn a little bit more, learn the game from a different eye.
"With Coach Partee being a very experienced coach, he has been through everything, the wins, the losses, he has won elite eight games, he has lost elite eight games, he has won conference championships, he has lost conference championships, so to be under his tutelage for three years was awesome. I wouldn't be here today if I wasn't under that. I know I have told him, "Thank you," but I really appreciate everything that he allowed me to do and to provide to the staff…"
Prior to Smith, the former St. Andrews Presbyterian College guard was the boys basketball head coach at Bethany Community, his only other varsity head coaching job, from 2019-2022. In his first three seasons, the Wolves went a combined 36-53 overall but were 19-7 in conference, including a 7-0 regular season conference title in 2019-20. Bethany parted ways with him after just two games of the 2022-23 season.
He was an assistant coach at Dudley for four years before that tenure, which included going 34-10 in two seasons as junior varsity coach. Before that, he coached at Guilford Middle School, where he compiled a 20-9 record in two seasons.
The coach's plans for rebuilding starts with establishing a culture through a hard-working mindset and creating community synergy.
"I'll be out there in the community doing camps, doing different things with the elementary schools and being able to connect," Hinson said, "because we want to be able to pack out the Fred Whitfield Court, and the only way you can do that is you have to meet people where they are at.
"We want to just bring a culture here that is about winning but winning in the right way. When we talk about winning, we talk about winning in the classroom first, and once we can win in the classroom, then we can win on the court."
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