By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor
The Jacksonville freshmen basketball team is off to a good start so far this season. Under first-year coach Tirrell Brown, the Red Devils are 4-0 overall and 1-0 in conference play after winning their River City opener 57-23 Thursday night over Bauxite.
Brown’s squad is very athletic and talented. Learning the hig school system and teaching the discipline it takes to play high-school ball under Victor Joyner has been the main area of focus so far for the squad.
“The kids are talented basketball players,” Brown said. “We just have to combine that talent with basketball IQ. We’re a conduit for coach Joyner, and we’re trying to get them ready for what he expects.”
Joyner, above all else, expects effort, and that’s what Brown is teaching. Brown has experience coaching at Jacksonville Middle School, and knows most of the players on the freshmen team. Stepping up the intensity and tweaking the game plan for the high school level is his biggest change.
“I have a pretty good handle on the discipline and the organization,” Brown said. “I’ve done a great deal of learning from coach Joyner and coach (Jerry)Wilson. The kids know me and know my expectation. We have a lot of talent. The thing we’re going to struggle with on the floor is discipline.”
Brown has already benched players for entire games, and recent performances on the floor indicate the players are taking to the intensified expectations and growing from them.
“We’re getting good effort,” Brown said. “They play hard. We just have to stay disciplined. Are we going to block out? Are going to triple threat when we get the ball. Is the point guard going to get us into our sets. We’re talented, but we’re teaching them it’s the little things that make you win or lose.
“Coach Joyner has a thing he calls 50-50 balls,” Brown said. “Those loose balls that are there for whoever is hustling the hardest. He wants at least 70 percent of those 50-50 balls. You can’t coach that. That’s just effort, so we’re trying to get the kids to give everything they have. And for the most part they do. This group works.”
Jacksonville’s other games have included a 47-17 win over North Pulaski, a 30-12 win over Pulaski Academy and a 39-37 win at Sylvan Hills.
Jarvis McCriston went the length of the floor and hit a layup at the buzzer of that game to lift the Red Devils to victory. Kerry Knight had 17 points to lead all scorers in the game.
Jacksonville gets back to conference play on Monday when it hosts White Hall. The freshmen Devils will be back on the road Thursday to face Joe T. Robinson High School.
