Jags focus on returning pieces to replicate last year’s success
The Spain Park High School boys basketball team is focusing on what it has, rather than what it lost.
Gone is Auburn signee Austin Wiley, who chose to finish his prep career at The Conrad Academy in Orlando, Florida. Graduated is Justin Brown, a key cog to the Jaguars’ Final Four run a season ago.
But the Jags do return one piece of the three-headed monster. Jamal Johnson, who recently signed with the University of Memphis, is now a senior and hoping to lead Spain Park back to the BJCC.
“I feel like we can make another run for it,” Johnson said. “Everybody’s focused and determined to get back to that stage and the Final Four and to try to win it all this year. Even though one of our main guys left, I think we still have a good shot of making it.”
Johnson knows he has to be the leader for the Jags, and his conversations with head coach Donnie Quinn have been to ensure that he and the team are moving in the right direction.
“We’re going to have a more spread-out offense, and Coach said he’s going to have a lot of different sets to try to get me open because people will go box-and-one [defense] on me,” Johnson said.
Quinn knows Johnson has the ability to play at an extremely high level, and wants to see him take a step in a different facet of his game.
“It all comes down to leadership,” Quinn said. “He’s a great player. His leadership skills, if they can be better, he can really lead our team and have those guys play around him. That’s going to be the difference for us.”
One guy who is presumed to step in right behind Johnson is young guard Parker Boswell, only a sophomore but in his third season on the varsity squad.
“He started at point guard as a freshman last year and he’s going to have to do more scoring than he did last year,” Quinn said.
Other players that are expected to step up and fill some of the void are Xavier Blanchard, Trey Johnson, Ronald Fortson and Justice Canady, among others.
Blanchard is a player that both Johnson and Quinn singled out as an instant impact player. Blanchard was forced to sit out last year, and the Jags will certainly need his contributions this season.
Trey Johnson is the younger brother of Jamal Johnson. As a sophomore, Trey is expected to “be a factor,” according to Quinn.
Fortson and Canady do not possess the natural gifts that Wiley brought to the table, but both bring physicality and grit to the table to bridge the gap.
“Everybody’s getting better each and every day, getting stronger, and I think all of them will be better players,” Jamal Johnson said.
There are sure to be other players to join the fray and make their presence known this season, something Quinn knows all too well as a veteran coach.
“Like all teams, you go into a season thinking you know what’s going to happen, then all the sudden this guy out of nowhere becomes a really big contributor,” he said. “All those things have yet to be determined. I’m looking forward to coaching these guys.”