“TAYVEN!”
Locked in a one-point game late in the third quarter on Saturday night, Center Grove boys basketball coach Zach Hahn saw the window of opportunity his team needed. Greenwood senior Rasheed Elemikan had just picked up his third foul down on the offensive end, and the Trojans were able to inbound the ball before the host Woodmen could get him out of the game.
Hahn implored his team to feed Jackson, who was being guarded by Elemikan, and the Trojans got exactly the momentum-shifting play they needed.
Jackson’s three-point play not only extended the lead to 19-15 but got one of Greenwood’s top players off the floor, a critical moment that helped Center Grove earn a 35-28 victory and claim the Johnson County tournament championship.
“(Elemikan’s) a great player, and part of the game plan was to try and get him out, because he is that elite kind of player,” Hahn said. “He changes the game for them in so many ways. And then I thought our guys did a great job of finding Tayven two, three possessions in a row where we got layups at the rim.”
The big and-one was just part of a second-half stretch that saw Jackson take over the game. After a 3-pointer by David Young at the 6:22 mark of the third gave Greenwood a 15-14 edge, Jackson scored 11 straight Trojan points over the next seven-plus minutes to help his team create a 25-18 lead.
The junior, who scored most of his game-high 18 points going to the basket, later drove and kicked the ball out to Tyler Cerny for an open corner 3 that gave Center Grove an almost insurmountable 30-20 advantage with 3:56 left in the game.
“Being a 6-5 guard, coach wants me to be a guard — but be a big guard,” Jackson said. “So to come down, and if I need to post people up, then post people up. That’s what we did, because they have little guards and that was our game plan coming in.”
The Woodmen (7-1) rallied to cut it to 31-27 on a Charlie Brooks 3-pointer in the final three minutes, but they couldn’t connect on another field goal the rest of the way and the Trojans were able to make enough free throws to seal it.
Neither team got any separation during a deliberate first half in which quality shot opportunities were hard to come by. Center Grove led at the break, 12-11.
The scoring picked up a little bit more in the second half, but Hahn was still thrilled with how his team played defensively — not just on Saturday, but throughout the entire tourney.
“The best thing about this is I thought our guys defended really, really well the second half of Whiteland, the entire Franklin game and this entire game. If you guard, that gives you a chance in every game that you play.
“I think some of our size and athleticism, our versatility defensively, allowed us to slow them down a little bit and make them be more patient than what they usually are.”
Greenwood coach Joe Bradburn, meanwhile, lamented the one that got away.
“It’s on me,” he said of the key third-quarter sequence. “It shouldn’t have gotten to that point where Rasheed got his fourth. Our bench and me, we should have had that coordinated better — but it was pivotal. Tough situation; we didn’t guard as well when Rasheed was in, and it shook Jackson open a little bit. Our rotations weren’t as sharp, and he got to the rim.
“They made a few more plays, and that’s it.”
In addition to Jackson’s 18, the Trojans (7-3) also got six points from Landin Hacker, five from Cerny, four from Ethan Jones and two from Shane Bennett. Greenwood got 10 points from Brock Kincaid, seven from Brooks, five from Noah Apgar and three apiece from Young and Elemikan.
The two crosstown rivals played for the sectional title last March, with the Woodmen earning the win, and there’s certainly a decent chance that they’ll meet again in the postseason this year.
“I’m sure they’ll make a few tweaks, and we’ll make a few tweaks, and we’ll just go at it again,” Bradburn said of a potential rematch. “We can’t let down at all. We had that little moment where we let them penetrate and get to the basket, and we gave in a little bit, and they got a couple of 50-50 balls after that. Those things are monumental when it’s going to be a game like this.”
