After disappointment, Queen’s Grant returns with eyes on state basketball title
A year ago, Queen’s Grant Charter School reached its first NCHSAA 1A Western Regional championship game. The Stallions, who started one senior and had a team full of freshmen, played that state semifinal at Joel Coliseum in Winston-Salem, where the ACC’s Wake Forest Demon Deacons play.
And that moment, and that court, were literally just too big.
“We weren’t ready,” said Queen’s Grant star Chase Smith. “It was really just nerves.”
Queen’s Grant, clearly uncomfortable in warmups, got down 11-0 to start, 38-15 at halftime and ultimately lost to eventual state champion Corvian Community School, another Mecklenburg County team, 75-44.
“I think the stage got them,” Queen’s Grant coach Joe Badgett said. “It was being in that game for the first time. Now they’re doing such a great job of holding each other accountable. If you watch our games, you’ll see them make mistakes, and they get on each other. You’re going to respond to your teammate saying something to you quicker than you will with me yelling at you about it. That’s the difference with his group.
“They have a different mentality when they come out.”
So that regional game, and the lessons from it, are fueling the Stallions as they make a bid for another deep run and winning the state championship this season.
“We’re still young,” said 5-foot-9 sophomore shooting guard Bobby Montgomery, “but we’re the ones that can do it. We just need the basketball gods with us.”
Queen’s Grant, which has no seniors this season, relies heavily on Montgomery, Smith — a 6-foot-9 sophomore — plus 6-7 sophomore Mekhi Allen and 6-foot junior point guard Preston Scott.
That quartet averages 54 points per game. The team averages 67.
The Stallions (16-3) won 69-32 at Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy on Tuesday and will try to win their 13th straight game when they play Mountain Island Charter on Friday.
“I don’t let them use youth as an excuse,” Badgett said. “It’s no different than when I coached (Georgia Tech’s) Jaeden Mustaf, (Minnesota’s) Cade Tyson, (former Queen’s University guard) Bryce Cash and (Concord University’s) Khamani Wertz (at Carmel Christian). These are seasoned basketball players and it doesn’t matter what your age is.”
A power emerges where there wasn’t one
Queen’s Grant, located near the Pine Lake Country Club in Mint Hill, opened in 2007 as an offshoot to a successful K-8 middle school that sits in the heart of the Charlotte suburb’s downtown area and always has a triple-digit waiting list.
Badgett coached the first three varsity basketball teams the school had. Queen’s Grant was not part of the N.C. High School Athletic Association back then and played an Independent schedule.
Badgett’s teams were 43-9 from 2008-10.
“We had some success,” Badgett said, “but not a lot of people knew about us.”
Badgett, who played college basketball for the Charlotte 49ers, left Queen’s Grant to coach at private Northside Christian with former teammate Byron Dinkins in 2010. He followed Dinkins to Carmel Christian six years later.
In 2018, Badgett took the head job at Carmel when Dinkins left to coach at Charlotte.
In 13 seasons at Carmel Christian and Northside, Badgett coached in 12 state championship games, winning six. He’s built a 217-38 record as a head coach and in 2024, The Observer named him one of the best basketball coaches of its 40-year Sweet 16 era.
But before Badgett came back to Queen’s Grant last year, the Stallions had some success, with winning records in 10 of 14 seasons, but were not a brand-name team.
That changed some last season.
Badgett’s first group of Stallions set a school record with 27 wins and set another record with its playoff run to the regional finals.
“I think we created some expectations,” Badgett said in Winston-Salem last season.
Youth is served, fast
Queen’s Grant started this season ranked among the top 10 2A teams in North Carolina and in the top 10 of The Observer’s Sweet 16 poll.
Smith, a top 60 national recruit in the sophomore class, said his team had a lot to prove this year.
“I think there were some doubters after our last game last year,” he said. “But we were playing in front of a bunch of people (at Lawrence-Joel) and it was our first time. We learned to be composed and stay with your teammates. Everybody was nervous last year. We learned basically to stay and play as one, to be smart.
“We’re very determined this year. That loss still hurts. It was by a lot, and we knew we could win that game. Man, it still hurts.”
Queen’s Grant started this season hot, winning its first three games, but Smith injured his kneecap in the second half of a 68-50 win over the Combine Academy national team on Nov. 7.
Queen’s Grant lost to Forsyth Country Day (74-56) and Ambassador Christian (51-48), two of the best teams in North Carolina, in any class, after that. Smith also missed a 62-52 win over Carmel Christian on Nov. 13.
His first game back was a 72-57 loss at Gaston Christian, a stretch where the Stallions were 1-4.
But since Smith has gotten to 100 percent again, Queen’s Grant is 12-0 — winning by an average of 24 points per game.
That run includes wins over 8A state title favorite West Charlotte, Landstown (the No. 24-ranked team in Virginia) and North Oconee (the No. 18-ranked team in Georgia).
“I coach all these kids the same,” Badgett said. “You’re going to get coached to prepare you for college, whether you’re going two years from now or in a year. But you see some things and I have to sit back at times and say, ‘That dude is 16,’ or, ‘That kid is 15.’ I have to manage myself with that part.
“But I don’t let them use that as a crutch at all. I treat them like seniors.”
The team of future past?
There seems to be a lot of room to grow at Queen’s Grant, quite literally, beside its starting five, all of whom have one or two years remaining in high school after this season ends.
Queen’s Grant, which doesn’t have a football team, currently has 550 students and could grow to 850.
The school is playing Friday home games at Carolina Courts in Indian Trail and Tuesday home games at the Carole Hoefner Center in uptown Charlotte.
A new $11 million gymnasium is set to open in June that will feature courts, classrooms and workout facilities.
Badgett and his players want to open it with a state championship banner.
And they keep the memory of last season’s state semifinal loss always fresh in their minds for extra motivation.
“We were really young back then,” said Montgomery, the sophomore guard. “None of us had been there before, and this year it’ll be better. We’ve been there. We’re really determined. Our minds are set into going into every game like we want to get back to the state championship.”
