Cougars returning bulk of roster

Year 3 feels more like Year 2 for Clay-Chalkville High School head boys basketball coach Jeremy Monceaux.

After his first year on the job in the 2014-2015 season, Monceaux’s Cougars graduated nine seniors, nearly all of his contributing players on the varsity team.

“It was different because your second year felt like your first year,” he said. “Obviously, we were very blessed that first year to be very talented, and a lot of them are still playing [in college].”

He was essentially forced to start over last fall.

“We took our lumps last year because of that. We finished the season 11-15 last year. A lot of people are surprised when they hear that, because we won nine of our last 12 games,” Monceaux said. 

His young team struggled out of the gates last year with an almost entirely different team, but by the end of the season, was playing well enough to take eventual Class 6A semifinalist Huffman to the wire in the Class 6A Northeast Sub-Regional.

“It took them awhile to get going,” Monceaux said. “From a maturity standpoint, we lost games last year by the way you should lose games when you’re young. We were blown out only twice.”

Much of that team is returning this fall, and Monceaux is counting on a deep roster to allow the Cougars the opportunity to put together a successful campaign.

“I feel really good about our senior class and what they can do,” he said. “We don’t have any superstars, but we do have a bunch of hard-nosed kids. Being able to put seven, eight, nine, 10 guys out there that can contribute and do what we do to help us be successful will be very helpful.”

What the Cougars do will remain consistent, regardless of the roster, the opponent, or any other circumstances.

“Hopefully, our identity every year that I’m here is that we’re going to guard people,” Monceaux said. “I want when people come in to play us, for us to make it hard for them for 32 minutes in the game to score. We struggled scoring last year big time, but because we played defense and that was the mainstay of what we do, we were in every game.”

He also guessed he spends about 70 percent of each practice focused on the defensive side of the floor.

As far as the on-court talent goes, Clay-Chalkville returns a pair of seniors who will shoulder much of the load: point guard Jalen Jordan and forward Anthony Holmes.

“[Jalen] works his tail off every day, and he does exactly what I tell him to do, but he’s not a verbal guy,” Monceaux said. “Anthony Holmes is probably our leader from a standpoint of that’s who they seem to follow. When he holds people accountable, they listen.”

Sophomore guard Eddie Smith and Keithan Parker are a pair of players who will also contribute greatly to the Cougars’ attack. Smith is the youngest player on the roster, the only 10th-grader among 14 juniors and seniors.

Other role players Clay-Chalkville is counting on to step up are Otis Black, Caleb Toney and Brandon Harper. All three have come through the freshman and junior varsity programs, and now look to contribute at the varsity level.

“They are three guys that really have to mature quickly, learn their role, be OK with their role, and on the defensive end, be able to stand up for us and be really good,” Monceaux said.