OAKLAND — It was billed as the “Battle In Birmingham.”
Picture nearly 3,000 spectators in the stands at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, but not for a college game — to see two high school teams compete.
That was the stage as DeMarcus Cousins’ seventh-ranked LeFlore High School (Mobile, Ala.) battled Derrick Favors’ No. 9 South Atlanta High School on ESPN2 a decade ago on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009.
“It was fun,” Favors recalled. “We was on the teams from our neighborhoods and playing with our friends and people that we grew up with, and that’s one of the reasons I stayed at the high school I stayed at because I grew up with those guys and I didn’t want to just leave them by going to a prep school, I wanted them to come on this ride with me.