No excuses.

Hackleburg girls basketball coach Mike Watts sent that message early to his team that it couldn’t spend this season feeling sorry for itself because of the upheaval from last April’s deadly tornado.

No home games? No problem, Watts said. “We’ll make the best of it.”

No place to practice? Not a big deal, Watts said. “We’ll run in the parking lot.”

“I tried to make sure we didn’t use all of that as a crutch,” Watts said last week as the Panthers prepared for the upcoming Class 1A, Area 13 tournament at Tharptown. “The first thing I did was buy them t-shirts with “No Excuses” on the back. I told them, ‘We ain’t going to feel sorry for ourselves. We are going to do the best we can.’ ”

Less than nine miles to the east of Hackleburg, Phil Campbell boys coach Will Copeland was delivering a similar message at the start of the season. Like the Panthers, the Bobcats lost most of their school when the same tornado that left Hackleburg in ruins came roaring through Phil Campbell.

“One day we were out running in front of the old school that’ll be torn down and I told the team to stop for a minute and look around,” Copeland said. “I told them, you are playing for more than yourselves; you’re playing for the community to give them a little hope.”

Both teams took the message to heart. With a win in its tournament opener Thursday against Belgreen, the Panthers will have win No. 20 and secure a berth in next week’s sub-regional games. Phil Campbell has 17 wins and captured a tough area title. The Bobcats will host the area tournament at Northwest-Shoals, Phil Campbell beginning Friday night.

Watts and company have compiled a 19-7 record, including a second-place finish in the area.

The Bobcats made it through a season-opening stretch of 11 or 13 games on the road.

“I didn’t realize it was going to be that tough of a stretch of road games,” Copeland said. “I told the team if we could survive that, we had a stretch of 10 or 11 at home after Christmas.

“The circumstances have made us tougher,” Copeland added. “All that time on spent on the bus has brought us closer together.”

The season has been especially trying for the coaches, who have spent the bulk of their time trying to find places and times to practice.

“It seems like every day the players will ask me where we are going to practice,” Watts said. “Usually I had to tell them I didn’t know. I was on the phone almost every day trying to find someplace we could go practice.”

Hackleburg has shuffled between several churches, Hamilton High School and Northwest-Shoals, Phil Campbell for its practices. Now that the town’s recreation center is functioning again, the team has spent time in its gym.

“It’s been difficult, but we’ve been taking it day-by-day,” Hackleburg senior Abby McHenry said. “It’s the only thing we can do. We’re just happy that we’ve had a chance to play this year.”

McHenry said the most difficult thing has been the teams inability to get into the school gym every morning just to shoot.

“But I think it has made us closer,” she said. “We’re all going through the same thing. I think we lean on each other more now than we did in the past.”

Both teams have played their home games at the Northwest-Shoals, Phil Campbell. The gym is a short ride for the Bobcats, who have been able to practice there more often than Hackleburg. Both teams had to work around the community college’s planned activities, which includes a lengthy run by the school’s Toyland production in December.

“We’ve been to Russellville and Haleyville to practice,” Copeland said. “I told the team that if we stick together, we’ll be OK.”

“It’s been tough not having a home court,” Watts said. “We appreciate Northwest letting us use their gym. It hasn’t been ideal, but under the circumstances it was the best we could do.”

Early in the season, Watts conducted practices where the Panthers didn’t even have a goal to shoot at.

“There’s been no fussing and nobody misses practice,” he said. “We’re still not back to normal. People come through Hackleburg and are amazed at the devastation. I’ve been proud of the way our team has handled this season.”

Contact Gregg Dewalt at 256-740-5748 or gregg.dewalt@Timesdaily.com.