Their teammates died. Through high school hoops, they grieve.

That night in November looked no different from any of the other hundreds Braylon Meade spent with his two best friends. He played table tennis with James McIntyre, then owed him McDonald's after losing soundly. He watched Michigan football highlights with Brian Weiser as the teammates planned for a double date that weekend. He laughed a lot, just as he always did.

The only perceptible difference was the promise of the next few months. Boys’ basketball tryouts at Washington-Liberty had just finished, and this season was more than just a last dance for the team's eight seniors, who had played together since middle school. It would be the first year Meade would join his friends in the heart of the rotation.

An excited Meade was already crowning the Generals as Liberty District champions. For him, years of clapping in faces and goading rivals into technical fouls were about to pay off. Teammates wanted nothing more than to see Meade, who dived after basketballs with reckless abandon and helped them with math homework before practice, flourish on the court.

"This was going to be his year," Weiser said.

That night in November, after seeing his friends, Meade went to his girlfriend's house. Shortly past midnight, on his ride home, a teenager driving under the influence crashed into Meade's car, killing the senior. He was 17.

"You can see them sometimes just looking outside," Washington-Liberty Coach Bobby Dobson said of his players. "They miss him. I miss him."

This winter, Washington-Liberty is one of several Northern Virginia basketball teams grieving in the wake of a player's sudden and gutting death. Kyle Honore, a 2022 Potomac graduate and All-Met selection, and Colette Baine, a senior at Woodgrove and region player of the year, died in August.

All three teams have turned to their sport as an outlet of recovery.

"The basketball team," Weiser said, "is a different brotherhood now."

Potomac players looked at their shoelaces and the gym's gray brick walls because there wasn't a better place to look. Some knew Honore for a few years while others knew him for a few months, but everyone who stood on the Panthers’ court in mid-August knew him well.

He was their star. Their coach's son. The one who was a fixture in the gym even after graduation, who ordered chicken tenders and chocolate milk at barbecue restaurants, who loved his four-wheeler and made everyone around him wonder: How does he always have the time to help me?

On Aug. 16, two days after his dad dropped him off at Wingate University — where he was set to begin the next stage of his basketball career — a train struck and killed him. He was 19.

There was no room for players to compartmentalize that day. Almost immediately, they cried and traded memories, quietly at that first practice and unrelentingly over the ensuing months.

More than anything, they remembered his smile, which never seemed to leave his face for more than a few seconds, especially in the gym. That day, at the players’ request, they practiced.

"Being in the gym — it just makes me feel better because I know Kyle is in there with me, watching over me," senior Tyree Hargett said. "No one lives forever. Life doesn't last forever. ... We know that now. I feel like it brought us closer together. We’ve got to cherish our moments together."

Noise and movement rarely halt at a Potomac practice.

It's early January, after the holiday break, and there's an unspoken agreement among the players and coaches: They’re practicing as Honore did. The athletes are sweating, drawing charges and flying around the court, but it's clear their most important task is to cheer from the baseline — to become part of the collective, the sea of clapping, of yelling, of laughing teammates. As players complete the final drill — a layup attempt while assistants pummel them with foam pads — the incessant roar crescendos and players tap their biceps.

These practices are the tradition the Honores built at Potomac. In certain ways, Kyle was an extension of his father on the court: gifted, hard-working and intelligent. In others, he was of his own mold: calmer, quieter. Both carried an unrelenting smile and energy in those practices. Basketball was their outlet.

"He was not only successful — he was the best," said Keith Honore, Kyle's father and coach. "He had a lot on his shoulders; he had to carry on that Potomac legacy. And I got a front-row seat to it. I got to help guide him. That's any father's dream."

As the Panthers try to play like Honore, they also try to replicate his compassion off the court. In trying moments, Hargett has kept in touch with graduated teammates. Anthony Mills, who took over as coach this season, will stay up to an hour after some practices end if someone needs a ride or a set of ears. Keith and Nichole Honore still hear from players, some of whom have gotten tattoos in their son's memory.

"During tough times, you really find out a lot about people and the community," Keith Honore said. "How much love they had for our family, it's extremely overwhelming. We’re grateful. They wrapped their arms around us."

And still, in Honore's tribute, Potomac basketball remains about the competition as much as it is a place to heal. At 12-4, the Panthers are a contender to make a deep run within Virginia. Their goal is to win a state title for him.

Woodgrove was always in a better spot when Baine was on the court.

It was easy to see the winning moments. The game-winning shot in the region final as a freshman. The wild layups that always seemed to fall in. The corner three-pointers she made with ease. The endless string of positive plus-minus totals that dotted the coaches’ spreadsheets.

But nothing told Woodgrove Coach Derek Fisher more about his player than when he called her after her sophomore season to say she was named Potomac District player of the year.

"She called me back five minutes later, and she didn't know what that meant," Fisher said, laughing. "Not only were those individual accolades not her mission, she literally didn't even know what that was. It wasn't why she played. She just loved being part of the team."

Baine, like Meade and Honore, had a bounce to her. She controlled the aux cord in the locker room and even walked musically, teammates said. She had strong emotions after losses but even stronger emotions after wins and was sarcastic in a way everyone enjoyed. Fisher felt a world of comfort when he named her team captain in mid-August.

On Aug. 27, after returning from a football game, Baine — who was diagnosed with epilepsy in 2018 — died after what her family characterized as a "medical emergency" at home. She was 17.

"Everything since seems kind of — not dull, but ... I don't know," said senior Jenna Steadman, searching for the right words. "She always brought good energy. That's just missing."

Coaches, in particular, have grappled with guiding teens through the mourning process. When the days get easier, players wonder if it's okay to feel happy. If their emotions take a dive, it can feel like the end of the world. The coaches at Washington-Liberty, Potomac and Woodgrove mentioned they talked to counselors and experts, who offered guidance on how to mindfully watch and listen.

While many athletes across the teams took advantage of their school's counseling services, most first looked to teammates for answers. A place such as the court, where they can take their mind off the trauma, and the community within a team, where they can discuss shared trauma, are essential parts of the grieving process, said Potomac school psychologist Adam Johnson. It can be harder to see a mental health professional.

Particularly among teenagers there's a stigma in seeing a mental health professional, Johnson said.

"We all grieve differently," he said. "Just trying to meet people where they are, hopefully within the community, will help ease the pain as much as possible."

"When you’re coaching young people, they haven't been through this type of loss," Fisher said. "It just doesn't register with them. There's confusion on their part. We’ve got to make sure we’re there for all these kids and to explain some of these emotions that they’re not understanding."

After an initial grieving period, Woodgrove's players have spent more time together. Some moments were hard. Early on during a routine drill, Fisher and a senior simultaneously began to well up. Baine used to command the entire gym's attention during that drill.

Even the Wolverines’ basketball vocabulary was updated to echo Baine's. They don't talk about points or rebounds but of "winning your segment." Memorials to Baine bleed on and off the court. Players have organized fundraisers, including a skills competition and a three-point contest, for the Epilepsy Foundation. Their warmup shirts have a heart around Baine's name and her No. 13 on the back.

"I’m happy to say I think those are happy moments now for them," Fisher said. "There are things that remind them of her, but there's a fondness. They’re anxious to remember her."

Reminders of Meade are intentionally omnipresent. Before games, the teams have a 22-second moment of silence. Meade's role was the handshake guy at the end of the starting lineup; now, teammates high-five the air before hugging Meade's parents, who attend every Washington-Liberty home game.

During their season opener against Chantilly, the Generals found themselves with an early deficit, shaken up after the first of many pregame memorials to Meade. They won by 41. (At Potomac's first game at the Kyle Honore Tip-Off, an early double-digit deficit turned into a convincing 15-point win).

In a December game two weeks later against rival Yorktown, both student sections wore shirts with Meade's name and No. 22 on the back. During the contest, Meade's jersey draped over a steel chair that remained empty at the end of the bench, and his father and girlfriend retaped posters that had lost their adhesiveness on the wall.

Once the game began, it was all business. Washington-Liberty, the Liberty District champion last season, vs. Yorktown, then 4-1 — each searching for a win early in league play.

With McIntyre, one of their top players, sitting out with an injury, the Generals grinded through one sluggish possession after another. They trailed 14-7 after a quarter, then 28-20 at halftime. But a wave of defensive stops gave them a chance entering the fourth quarter.

Down three points with three minutes left, Washington-Liberty players huddled around their coach. Dobson, exasperated, repeatedly yelled "Twenty-two!" between breaths.

"That means guard your guy," Dobson said.

There was no storybook ending — the Generals did not win. But they held their rivals scoreless for the rest of the game.