Kaden Bates can’t recall the exact school event — it might have been an orientation — but he was in fifth grade at T. Clay Wood Elementary in Prince William County when he first spotted Jay Randall.
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“I was already in there sitting down with my parents and Jay and his mom ended up walking in,” Bates said. “I’m standing there screaming, ‘Jay, Jay, Jay, come sit next to me!’ And then we kind of just never separated from that.”
In the decade since that encounter, the duo has stuck together on and off the basketball court.
From Patriot High School, where they competed for a state title in 2023, to Indianapolis, where they’ll aim to capture a Division III national championship as teammates at the University of Mary Washington Sunday at 4:30 p.m. against Emory University, Bates and Randall have come as a true package deal.
“Oh, they are inseparable,” UMW men’s basketball coach Marcus Kahn said with a chuckle. “[Assistant head coach Mark Sansone], and I laugh all the time, but when one of them comes into the office, you know the other one’s about five seconds away from walking in.
Jay Randall (11) has averaged 12.9 points per game for UMW this season while playing out of position. (Photo by Jeff Kearney.)
“They’ve been roommates all three years. I think that they have taken just about every class together. I mean, it’s amazing. If you see one, the other is not far behind.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, the two juniors are located right next to one another on the Eagles’ roster, as well (Bates wears No. 10, Randall No. 11).
And both players have started all 32 games for UMW (29-3).
“Our games,” explained Bates, “have grown to be based off each other.”
Despite standing just 6-foot-4, Randall has manned the five spot for the Eagles, routinely matching up against post players who enjoy significant size advantages.
“He’s played out of position really all three years,” Kahn said of Randall, who’s averaging 12.9 points per game and is second on the team with 195 rebounds.
Meanwhile, when Bates arrived on campus, Kahn immediately pegged him as one of the team’s top defenders but also observed a lack of touch from the perimeter.
“He really wasn’t shooting too much, and that was okay,” the coach said.
This season, however, the 6-foot-3 guard has connected on 29 3-pointers while averaging 7.9 points per game. He’s also sinking more than 70 percent of his free throw attempts.
“His role has expanded from being just our lead defender — which he still is— to leading us in scoring at times,” Kahn said.
And both players swear by their on-court chemistry, especially when tempers start flaring.
“Sometimes it’ll be like encouraging words to him,” said Bates, “or sometimes, like, we’ll be cussing.”
Bates and Randall never explicitly discussed continuing their college careers in tandem, but they took a joint visit to UMW’s campus as high school seniors.
At the time, they were fresh off a loss to Hayfield in the VHSL Class 6 state championship game. No sooner had the sting of that defeat abated than they made another pledge.
On Sunday, they’ll have a chance to see it through — together.
“I feel like we both kind of knew that we didn’t want to feel this type of way again,” Bates said. “And we knew that we’d want to be playing in a big game like that again, and we wanted to win.”
