After a successful tenure of coaching at the Class 2A and 3A levels, Brian Kader will take his aim at Class 5A as the new head girls basketball coach at Durant High School. Kader is a 12 year head coaching veteran with stops at Buffalo, Depew, Lindsay and mostly recently at Okemah for the past year. Prior to that he was skipper at Lindsay for six seasons including a handful of deep playoff runs. He was also an assistant at Randall University before taking his first high school head coaching position.
At Durant, Kader will welcome back the team’s top two scorers in Iyanna Wilson and Ella Sorrels from a squad that finished 18-9 and fell just short of a return trip to the Class 5A state tournament. Over the past two seasons, that duo has been the catalysts for the Lady Lions in notching an overall record of 37-17 in that span.
Prior to taking the DHS job, Kader talked to Hall of Fame head coach Tony Robinson, who took over the Durant program reins when his son Will died in the tragic Christmas Eve accident in 2024 and continued to guide the program last season at the age of 71.
“I talked to Coach Robinson about the position quite a bit and he seemed excited for me to take the job,” Kader said. “Will did a great job and I know there are big shoes to fill but am excited about the opportunity. I knew Durant was a nice community and bigger town than I have coached in the past, but I am looking forward to building a program at the 5A level and feeding off their recent success.
“I think we have a chance to be really good. We will have three starters back and the top two scorers. I know we will be lacking in size but our guard play should lead us. I have watched some of the film from last year and am looking forward to working with the girls this summer.”
Although Kader has never coached in the state tournament, his teams have been right on the cusp over the last several years At Okemah this past season, his team posted a 22-8 record and reached the Area Tournament semifinals. The Lady Leopards reached the area round each of his final four seasons at Lindsay as well.
“I had to work on building things back up at Lindsay the first couple years there and then had some decent runs,” Kader admitted. “We improved every year there and were knocking on the state tournament door our last four seasons. I’m planning on the same type of success here.
“It’s going to start this summer with camps at Southeastern, Ada and Pottsboro. We will try to put in some stuff this summer, but I know it will be an adjustment phase. It will give the girls an idea of what we are planning to do though and they can start to figure things out a little bit.”
As far as style of play, Kader expects to incorporate plenty of man-to-man defense, full court pressure and push the pace as much as possible.
That will all begin his introductory prep camp this week. “I’ve been a man-to-man guy my entire coaching career,” he added. “I would love to pressure full court as well and I think we have good enough athletes coming back that we can do that. We’ll look to run a lot of dribble-drive offensive sets and play at a fast pace.
“We are going to have to fill several spots, so everybody is going to have their shot. I want to go out this summer and see who gives the best effort and see where everyone is skill wise, how hard they work and how coachable they are.”
