As sophomores, Charlie Bemis, Landin Hacker, Ethan Jones and Mason Long got to come along for the ride on Center Grove’s run to the Class 4A boys basketball semistate. They practiced with the varsity team — and both Bemis and Hacker dressed for tournament games — but they were largely passengers on a senior-led journey.
Their plan was to make a repeat trip last season, when all four stepped into much larger roles with the Trojans, but those plans never fell into place as a talented but disjointed team stumbled to a 9-15 record and a sectional loss to Greenwood.
Having seen both ends of the spectrum, the senior quartet knew which path it preferred to take this winter.
“Last year was rough for all of us, especially coming off of such a great season with Trayce (Jackson-Davis),” Jones said. “It was tough getting through that, and then all of these guys coming back, they’re all committed to this, more so than ever. They’ve been through the worst, and we’re ready to reap the rewards.
“We all remember how to win, and we’re all scared of losing; no one wants to lose here. It’s a terrible feeling, and we remember what it was like.”
The pain of struggling through last season (Center Grove also surrendered the county tournament title to Greenwood Christian) stuck with the Trojan players, who made a concerted effort during the offseason to get the team back on track.
“More than anything, it’s made them hungry for success,” coach Zach Hahn said. “They’ve talked about getting back to the regional, and that’s been a goal of theirs all year, and we’re sitting here ready to do it.”
The Trojans — who, technically speaking, are still the defending regional champion since there was none last March — begin their quest for another title when they face Evansville Reitz in a semifinal at noon today.
Getting back here was anything but a given. Center Grove trailed for a good chunk of the night in its first-round sectional game against Franklin Central, and it faced another difficult test in the final against Greenwood, but the battle-tested Trojans survived the state’s eighth-toughest schedule in the regular season and aren’t likely to be rattled by any challenge at this point in the year.
“We just want it more,” Hacker said of the team’s late-game grit. “Especially on Tuesday (against Franklin Central), we really fought hard. We were down six or seven with a couple of minutes to go and we fought back as hard as we could.”
“The schedule that we’ve played this year has really prepared us,” Hahn said. “We’ve played all of the best teams. We’ve played teams that slow it down, we’ve played teams that pick up full-court, we’ve played teams that zone press. So we’ve had a really good balance, and we’ve been in every single game. We haven’t won them all, but we’ve been right there in the final minute with everybody, and so I think that just gives these guys confidence moving forward that we’re one of the best teams in the state.”
While the polls haven’t given Center Grove that kind of love — largely a product of not having a well-known superstar player on the roster — the computers have. The Trojans have been among the top 10 Class 4A teams in the Sagarin ratings just about all season long.
They also have taken No. 2 Carmel to overtime and had No. 3 Lawrence North in a one-possession game down the stretch. Center Grove has only lost one game by more than 10 points, and that was by 11 at Bloomington North in early December, when Long and juniors Tayven Jackson and Shane Bennett were still just days removed from a state title run in football.
This group is eager to make a similar run on the hardwood, and well aware of how capable it is of doing so. Hahn has been raving about this group of Trojans since the summertime.
“This team has the best ability of any team that I’ve coached, and they believe it,” he said. “They believe in themselves, and they believe in each other, and that’s a big reason why we’re still playing.”
“We play the best in the state week after week,” Jones added. “All these guys can perform, and every one of them is a threat. We have Tayven, but we’ve got Hacker, we’ve got Chuck. Everyone can hit a shot, everyone can get to the rim … and we’re a great defensive team.”
Center Grove isn’t getting ahead of itself, but while the “one game at a time” cliché is always adhered to very strictly, the players have absolutely been entertaining thoughts of what it might be like to lead the Trojans to Bankers Life Fieldhouse for the first time in school history.
“We’ve got to take it one game at a time,” Jones said, “but I’ll tell you — I’ve had visions since last summer.”
Those visions are much more clearly visible right now.
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Class 4A Seymour Regional
Bloomington South (23-4) vs. Jeffersonville (15-6), 10 a.m.
Center Grove (14-6) vs. Evansville Reitz (16-4), noon
Championship, 8 p.m.
Admission: $8 per game. Each school is being allotted 2,000 tickets for each game.
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Class 4A Seymour Regional
Sagarin ratings: Center Grove 91.07 (10th in 4A, 13th in Indiana), Jeffersonville 86.55 (23rd in 4A, 29th overall), Bloomington South 85.70 (26th in 4A, 33rd overall), Evansville Reitz 82.27 (35th in 4A, 44th overall)
Chances of winning title (according to John Harrell): Center Grove 41.98%, Jeffersonville 27.49%, Bloomington South 17.21%, Evansville Reitz 13.33%
Players to watch: Bloomington South — Joey Bomba, Patrick Joyce, Trevor Taylor; Center Grove — Marcus Ankney, Charlie Bemis, Landin Hacker, Tayven Jackson, Ethan Jones; Evansville Reitz — Owen Dease, Ethan Higgs, Isaac Higgs, Jordan Jarvis, Gavin Schippert; Jeffersonville — Jaylen Fairman, Will Lovings-Watts, Brandon Rayzer-Moore, Kobe Stoudemire
The bottom line: There isn’t a Mr. Basketball in this regional for the first time in recent memory, but there should still be plenty of competitive basketball. Jeffersonville comes in hot with nine straight wins, including two in overtime, and a recent infusion of fresh talent in Rayzer-Moore, a transfer from Kentucky who recently became eligible to play. Bloomington South, which also got some transfer help in the form of Taylor (Edgewood), has been even hotter, winning all 16 of its games since the calendar flipped to 2021. Before it sees either of those squads, though, Center Grove needs to concern itself with Reitz, which lost four of six after an 11-0 start but rebounded to win its sectional. Dease is a Division I recruit, and he gets some help up front from Schippert. The Trojans have the advantage of having played a much tougher schedule than anyone in the field, which could serve them well in a close contest. Coach Zach Hahn’s team isn’t an overwhelming favorite, but he likes Center Grove’s chances to advance to its second semistate in three years.
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