Standing at six foot, seven inches, Charleston’s junior varsity basketball team’s newest player could be making an impact on the JV and varsity teams quickly.
T.J. Bell, a freshman strong forward, is entering his third season of basketball at Charleston, according to coach Jim Wood. Already listed on Scout.com as a player scouts are watching, the team is working to develop him into one of the top perimeter players.
“He’s a perimeter player for us, and so we’re trying to develop that,” Wood said. “Ball handling on the perimeter, defending on the perimeter, and really just trying to get his game in tune with our system and what we do. He is a young kid still, so we kind of have to bring him along, but he has a lot of natural ability that we’re trying to develop.”
Wood added that he has a lot of natural basketball skills and athletic ability, so they are just trying to fine tune him to suit the team.
Trying to figure out of Bell will play JV or varsity is just one of the unknowns for Wood. He is also trying to figure out what other players are going to play varsity or JV, and what combinations are going to work best for the team.
“Well, we really haven’t decided who’s going to play only JV or only varsity or mix and match,” Wood said.
Wood added that while no positions were questionable with trying to find players to fill the spaces, they are trying to find the combination of players that are working well and a rotation that will work in games.
There are a total of 11 returning juniors and seniors for this year’s varsity and junior varsity. Along with them, there are a few extra sophomores and freshmen that played at the lower level last year that are joining the team.
“We’ve got a mix of young and older player,” Wood said. A couple of freshmen, mixed in with the sophomores and then some of the juniors and seniors that have been here for a couple of years now.”
Wood said that the mix of age groups is making team chemistry a bit tougher, but that the team is working pretty well together so far.
When the new lineup is finally decided for the team, Wood said that they will be running a motion offense. They also have set plays that will be used as well, but the plays also feed into their motion.
On defense, he said the team tries to mix it up.
“We’ll play a little bit of man and a little bit of zone, and we’ll press a little bit,” Wood said. “We mix it up and that tends to keep teams off balance a little bit and plays into our favor if we’re proficient at playing different types of defenses.”
With Apollo conference action starting right on Dec. 5, the team has to start looking towards the schedule and, what Wood calls the balanced Apollo conference. He said that it is hard to know what the junior varsity will come up against.
“There could be some freshman players playing JV, or they might have a heavy junior roster for JV,” he said. “So, it’s really tough to say. The Apollo’s usually fairly balanced, though.”
