Greenwood Christian’s new boys basketball coach Jackson Williams, a Center Grove graduate, runs a recent preseason practice.
Chris Williams | For the Daily Journal
About the only thing that hasn’t changed at Greenwood Christian are the expectations.
Less than two years removed from a historic season that included the school’s first-ever Johnson County tournament championship in any sport and ended with the Cougars ranked atop the state in Class A, the boys basketball program has undergone a complete makeover.
Coach Jonny Marlin is gone, replaced by Center Grove graduate and former GCA assistant Jackson Williams. The roster has completely turned over, with only one starter back from a year ago and nobody who saw action in that 2020 county title game still around.
Heck, Greenwood Christian even has a new campus (although their home games this season will still be played in the old gym a couple of miles to the south).
Williams, still adjusting to his first varsity head coaching gig, feels the transition has gone smoothly thus far. Carrying over at least some relationships from his previous stint at GCA — he was an assistant coach has helped.
“The leap, really, has not been as bad as I thought it would be,” Williams said. “The nice part about being an assistant everywhere I’ve been is that I’ve had my own team, so I’ve been making my own practice plans and scouting and doing all that. I feel like the coaches I’ve worked for have really prepared me to do what I’m doing right now.”
The Cougars are starting nearly from scratch, with junior Blake Shewmaker the only returning player who was in last year’s starting lineup. Shewmaker averaged just over nine points as a sophomore; he’s ready to boost that number a bit this season if need be.
“Really, I just do whatever I can do to help my team win,” he said, “whether that’s scoring, rebounding, whatever.”
Most of Shewmaker’s teammates will be seeing their first varsity action when GCA opens its season at crosstown rival Greenwood on Nov. 27.
Despite that inexperience, Williams wants to keep the bar set exactly where that 2019-20 squad left it.
“From the first day when I was introduced to the guys, we talked about our goals,” he said. “We’re not going to shy away from our goals that we have. We would love to be one of the top programs in the state, regardless of class, regardless of school size.
“That team was a very special team, and they’ve set a very high standard, a very high bar here at GCA. We’re striving to grow each day and get just a little bit better each day; that way, hopefully one day people talk about this group.”
The best way for a team to get people to talk about it is to win. Greenwood Christian isn’t going to be able to overwhelm teams with the same type of size and talent it had two years ago, so it’ll have to find other ways to get those results.
For Williams, it all starts with doing the dirty work.
“We’re talking right now about really emphasizing the defensive side of the ball, and making sure that we’re going to do the things that teams don’t want to do — talking about boxing out, rebounding, screening, diving on the floor, taking charges, doing things that aren’t necessarily the pretty things,” Williams said. “If we guard and we’re strong with the ball and we do the little things, we’ll always have a chance.”
