Cougars look to everyone to fill scoring void
A lengthy conversation with Jeremy Monceaux about the 2017-18 version of the Clay-Chalkville High School boys basketball team goes by without a single mention of the word defense.
But defense is what the fourth-year head coach of the Cougars hangs his hat on. Any opponent that has faced them in his tenure can attest to that. Monceaux has ingrained that mindset so deeply into his program that he doesn’t even need to bring it up anymore.
“That’s a given,” he said.
Great defense has allowed Clay-Chalkville to advance to a sub-regional game each of the last three seasons and go toe-to-toe with a team that eventually made it to the Final Four.
The Cougars battled Woodlawn to the end without star player Hasan Abdullah in 2015, and lost in the final seconds to Huffman in 2016 and Parker last season.
There is hope that this year’s team could be the one that breaks through to the regional tournament. Monceaux now has a senior class that has been with him since its freshman year, and there “is no secret what’s being demanded” from each player in the program.
Clay-Chalkville likely won’t be the first name brought up when discussing the top Class 6A teams in the area, but Monceaux believes his team will raise eyebrows throughout the year.
“I think we’ll surprise some people early, because I don’t think anybody’s expecting us to be really good,” he said. “I fully expect to be in the mix at the end regardless of what the record looks like at that point.”
After graduating the likes of Jalen Jordan and Anthony Holmes, the Cougars will have to replace a significant chunk of their leadership and scoring production. That predicament likely won’t have an immediate solution at the outset of the season, but the Cougars do have some options.
Nick Howard is taking advantage of the rule implemented last year that allows homeschooled students to participate in athletics at the school for which they are zoned. Howard is a guard who has the ability to shoot the ball from anywhere on the floor. He’s had a great deal of success at the AAU level, and Monceaux is eager to see how his game translates to the major high school level.
Along with Howard, Otis Black, Caleb Toney, Brandon Harper, Jovan Gale and Christian Bryant are seniors. Toney played a significant role last season and should take another step forward this winter.
Monceaux didn’t want to point to a specific senior to take on the brunt of the scoring load left behind, and said that everyone, including the underclassmen, will need to contribute in order to have a successful season.
“We feel good about it,” Monceaux said. “Young, talented and unproven … If they’re able to stay together as a unit, by the end of the year, we’re going to give somebody a game that you wouldn’t expect.”
The Cougars open up the season against Grissom on Nov. 7.