<p>Some eyebrows raised when Zach Hahn was named boys basketball coach at Center Grove a month before his 26th birthday.</p>
<p>Eighty victories, three consecutive sectional championships and a class 4A semistate berth later, persons critical of the hire have become as rare as underhanded free throws.</p>
<p>With 41 varsity wins over the past two seasons and an unbeaten junior varsity campaign last winter, Hahn feels the program has been built to weather loss.</p>
<p>That belief is about to be seriously tested.</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
<p>Center Grove graduated six key seniors from a 21-9 semistate qualifier, including career scoring leader and Indiana Mr. Basketball Trayce Jackson-Davis. The family of the other fixture in the Trojans’ lineup, then-junior forward Justin DeGraaf, moved back to Michigan over the summer.</p>
<p>This season, Hahn knows, will be a challenge. And yet he’s no less enthusiastic than during the weeks leading up to previous seasons.</p>
<p>“Three of these guys played varsity basketball last year. Almost all of them dressed varsity, and they were on a team that was 22-0 at the junior varsity level,” said Hahn, who is 80-50 at Center Grove. “We really like the pieces that we have.</p>
<p>“It’s going to be a matter of whether or not these guys jell together and prove that they care about one another. If they do that, they can be a really, really good team.”</p>
<p>The most experienced player is 6-foot-4 Tayven Jackson, a sophomore guard who played in all but one of the team’s 30 games last season. Junior guard Charlie Bemis (24 games), 6-5 swingman Ben Cooney (19), the team’s lone senior and junior guard Landin Hacker (13) played varsity minutes that will help them adapt to bigger roles this season.</p>
<p>Austin Booker and Ethan Jones are 6-6 juniors expected to play close to the basket along with 6-4 junior forward Leyton McGovern, a move-in from McCutcheon.</p>
<p>Junior Dane Young and sophomore Ty Cerny add depth in the backcourt.</p>
<p>“We have great size. We’re actually bigger across the board this year than what we were last year. We’ve got a lot of versatility with these guys, and we’re going to try to play a different style of basketball,” Hahn said. “In the past we’ve done a lot of halfcourt man-to-man stuff, and on offense we did a lot of ball-screening.</p>
<p>“This year we’re going to go away from that and change a little bit of our identity because we don’t have the same group of players who played for us the last couple years.”</p>
<p>How this translates playing in the unforgiving Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference remains to be seen. Three of the four semistate qualifiers in Class 4A last season were from the MIC; the league has produced five of the last eight 4A state champions.</p>
<p>Center Grove is coming off a season in which it tied for sixth in the MIC with Ben Davis, the team the Trojans faced at the Washington semistate.</p>
<p>Some might view this as a rebuilding or reloading season for Center Grove. Hahn sees it as a tremendous opportunity for the players who practiced daily against the senior-laden team of a year ago to make names for themselves.</p>
<p>“These guys saw what it took to work and they started doing stuff on their own,” Hahn said. “I think that’s just a culture that hopefully we have here now. It’s going to be a test this year at times, but I think this group can beat anybody on our schedule.”</p>[sc:pullout-title pullout-title="Scouting the Trojans" ][sc:pullout-text-begin]<p><strong>Scouting the Trojans</strong></p>
<p>Coach: Zach Hahn (sixth season)</p>
<p>Last season: 21-9, won county championship; lost to Ben Davis in Class 4A semistate</p>
<p>Key returnees: Ben Cooney, senior; Austin Booker, Charlie Bemis, Landin Hacker and Ethan Jones, juniors; Tayven Jackson, sophomore</p>
<p>Top newcomers: Leyton McGovern and Dane Young, juniors; Ty Cerny, sophomore</p>
<p>What to expect: There is no such thing as a bare cupboard at Center Grove even though it lost 91 percent of its scoring from last season. Cooney, the team’s lone senior, teams with Jackson and Bemis as the players with the most varsity experience. Hacker logged some minutes, but was mostly a key component on the Trojans’ 22-0 junior varsity squad. Their perimeter shooting will be key, while Jones, the 6-6 Booker and 6-4 move-in McGovern are counted on near the basket.</p>[sc:pullout-text-end][sc:pullout-title pullout-title="3 points with Ben Cooney" ][sc:pullout-text-begin]<p><strong>1. Besides your own, what’s your favorite gym to play in?</strong></p>
<p>Probably the Seymour gym or at Southport. I think I have the most fun at Southport because the atmosphere is different.</p>
<p><strong>2. Which nonconference opponent are you most looking forward to playing?</strong></p>
<p>Bloomington South because I’ve never played against them without Trayce (Jackson-Davis). It’s fun to see that type of competition.</p>
<p><strong>3. If you could steal one skill from one of your teammates, what would it be?</strong></p>
<p>Tayven (Jackson’s) dribbling. He’ll probably run most of the 1 for us this season. Just watching him dribble is something else.</p>[sc:pullout-text-end]
