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December 4, 2008

CRESS: The future is now at Jeff

By MATT CRESS

The thing about basketball is that sometimes you have to sacrifice the present for the future.

Any Indiana fan can understand the concept. We love our woeful little team. We clap when they hit the deck and dive for a loose ball. We delight when they run an actual offense, moving and screening they way the Hoosiers haven’t in the past.

What we’ve learned is that we aren’t cheering so much for this year’s team (good kids who remind me of the Island of Misfit Toys). We’re cheering for the things we’re going to see when the personnel is a better match for Division I basketball.

We’re fans of the present, but we’re rooting for the future.

This season, here on a more local court, we’re getting that same rare chance to get in on the ground floor of something special.

I’m talking about the Jeffersonville girls’ basketball team, which is off to a 4-1 start and has already won its first two Hoosier Hills Conference games.

That’s pretty much par for a program that has been the jewel of Clark-Floyd hoops (arguably in both girls’ and boys’ basketball), but what’s different is found in the ingredients.

There are more sophomores (nine) on the varsity roster than in your typical junior-varsity lineup. There are just two upperclassmen, but they are juniors — there isn’t a single senior to be found.

Three players (including two freshmen) stand at 6-foot or taller. Three others are near the 6-foot threshold. Many of the remaining girls play taller than they are.

Those two freshmen— Lakin Roland and Jalynn McClain — are stars in the making and both of them are legitimate Player of the Year contenders, but all winning teams need more than stars. After all, championship teams are never those with the best five players, but those who have players that play their positions.

Sophomore Jamice Williams is a pure point guard. Junior Alexis Samuel, a breakout star as a sophomore, now functions less as a No. 1 scoring option and more like a blue-collar rebounder with a nose for solid work around the basket.

Brooke Valentine, certainly of solid basketball stock, is a rising star on the interior, while Shanice Gholson may be the area’s best highlight-reel player, with the ability to score from anywhere on the court. Sophomore Racheal Gary, a prolific scorer (20-plus points per game) during her freshman season at Rock Creek, is a dangerous weapon who is having trouble cracking the varsity rotation as she learns a new system.

Sure, it isn’t all paradise.

Someone is going to have to learn to hit the mid-range jumper on a consistent basis. Limiting turnovers (long touted by me as the true key to a state title in girls’ basketball) is an ongoing issue that would make Jeff head coach Chad Gilbert tear his hair out if he didn’t have such fashionable frosted tips.

Senior-laden teams, or any squad that refuses to play Jeff’s style, will give the Red Devils a problem (as seen in a season-opening loss to North Harrison). Perhaps the postseason, with its bigger crowds and relentless pressure, will make young Jeff shrink from the spotlight.

The thing is, when every varsity player comes back for 2009-10, they’ll have had time to work out all the kinks. Then they’ll have more time. In fact, when all those sophomores are seniors, the biggest obstacle for Jeff will be finding enough minutes for all that talent.

By the time this all plays out, Jeff has a chance not only at a state title, but to be one of the most spectacular teams ever to come from this storied little corner of the country’s most basketball-crazy state. Like IU fans, we watch them grow, confident that every moment brings us closer to the day that the promising future becomes the glorious present.

For the Jeff girls, it could even be right now.

Contact Matthew Cress at matthew.cress@newsandtribune.com.

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