Bishop Seabury senior Mikey Wycoff (2) pulls up for a jump shot against Hanover on Thursday at Seabury.

Bishop Seabury boys basketball coach Ashley Battles can recall his first meeting with senior guard Mikey Wycoff as though it were yesterday.

Approximately six years ago, Battles was barking out orders at a basketball camp, when he noticed a few junior high-aged kids who weren’t giving him their full attention. Battles threw them out of the gym with very little hesitation and he never mentioned it again.

That was until several years later when the notorious camp culprits — Wycoff and junior Zach McDermott — cemented themselves as the leaders of his 2016-17 squad, which has a 3-2 record and a No. 5 ranking in Class 2A. Those two losses are against teams in 5A and 6A.

“We have talked about that since. They don’t remember it, but I do,” Battles said. “They were just goofing around. They were being seventh graders, you know?”

Seabury's Zach McDermott (5) extends for a shot over Council Grove's Blake Buchman (3) during their game Tuesday evening at Bishop Seabury.

Wycoff and McDermott have come a long ways since being tossed out of a basketball camp. But in so many ways, they are merely the same.

The two have been inseparable every day since and many days before the day of the camp ejection. In fact, Wycoff and McDermott first met as foes in a basketball game at the elementary school level. Wycoff was a third grader and McDermott was one grade below him.

“I wouldn’t even call it a friendship, honestly,” McDermott said. “I would say we are brothers. We have been brothers since about the second grade. I think I am closer to him than anyone else.”

Brotherhood may actually be the only accurate way to describe their bond, and the path they have taken to get there.

Shortly after their first meeting, McDermott’s family took Wycoff under their wing. They helped him in several ways, including financially — even providing Wycoff, a son of a single mother, with a place to stay whenever he has needed it over the last eight years.

“He told his dad that he felt like my family needed help,” Wycoff. “So they came into my life and helped my mother with bills when she was struggling. And they just made me feel welcome. He’s always been there whenever I needed something. He really is like a brother. His two parents are basically my second parents.”

Wycoff’s second parents were even an integral part to his arrival at Bishop Seabury.

After spending the duration of his academic career at a public school, the McDermotts encouraged Wycoff to look into going to Bishop Seabury. With their encouragement, he was able to get a 3.8 GPA as an eighth grader, to qualify for scholarships and make the transfer more feasible.

Just two years later, Wycoff and McDermott took the court together — an image they had dreamt about since the early days of their friendship. And they have wreaked havoc on opposing defenses ever since. Wycoff has a knack for scoring, but was quick to credit McDermott’s ability to dish the rock.

The two are a perfect tandem.

“He’s the best player in Kansas and even in Missouri,” McDermott said. “He’s unstoppable once he gets in his mode. Once he gets hot, there is no way you can stop him at all.”

Which is why this season has even more on the line. It will likely be the last for the duo in the same jersey.

Wycoff, who is averaging 22.4 points per game through the early part of the season, is nearing the end of his high school career and starting to look at his options at the next level. He said he has interest from schools such as UC Davis, Nebraska-Omaha and UMKC.

However, Wycoff has not received an offer. Former Kansas basketball standout Wayne Simien, Wycoff’s third cousin and a family friend of the McDermotts, has helped him through the process.

“The college situation has affected me,” Wycoff said. “This past summer I told myself, ‘Hey, you got to go eat, it’s your last time. If you want your college paid for, then you have to show them that you are serious.'”

Meanwhile, McDermott knows he has just one more chance to avenge previous gut-wrenching postseason finishes with his favorite teammate. The Seahawks went 18-4 last year, including a 10-0 start, en route to their first state tournament appearance since 2012.

However, they were knocked out in the first round despite posting the school’s best finish in history. The year before that the Seahawks lost on a buzzer-beater in their sub-state bracket.

But this time around, the Seahawks seem primed to overcome that last hurdle. And it is largely due to the bond of the team’s most prolific pair.

“That’s exactly what it’s going to take,” Battles said. “We are going to need for those two guys to be brothers, which they have been. We need all of us to be a family and develop that same brotherhood that they have.”