By: Alex Northcut, Sports 731 Reporter
Basketball returns to the Hub City in less than one week with all five Jackson-Madison County schools looking to put together strong seasons on the court. The Sports 731 Network begins its preview of the 2023-2024 high school basketball season with a look at the teams from JCM.
The Lady Cougars enter the year on the court with a young roster led by 1st year head coach Jeremy Simmons. JCM will suit up 13 freshmen this season, making the primary focus of the preseason centered around the fundamentals of the game.
“We’re focused on creating great habits in practice, making sure that everything we do every day at practice is full speed, communicating, doing what we’re supposed to do, and doing it the right way,” said Simmons.
However, while the team as a whole presents a young front, JCM does in fact return arguably one of the top individual players in the area.
Nyjha Webster, a 6-2 guard, is expected to lead the Lady Cougars as a dominant offensive threat. Already receiving multiple Division 1 offers, Webster is poised for a phenomenal year in her junior season. Wanting to play an up-tempo style of basketball, Coach Simmons is also anticipating a big year from his sophomore point guard, Shayliah Johnson.
“We’re going to be a great defensive team,” said Simmons. “We’re going to bring pressure and try to speed teams up. We want to create turnovers and score off of turnovers.”
On the boys side, JCM is looking to build off of a great summer of hard work as they enter the 2023-2024 campaign. Under 2nd year head coach Kendall Dancy, the Cougars will be battle tested early in the regular season, taking on teams such as Bolivar, Haywood, Munford, North Side, and South Side before they hit their district schedule.
Similar to the girls program, the JCM boys will also have several younger athletes take the floor this season. The Cougars do return their leading scorer from a year ago in junior B.J. Ballard, the only member of this year’s squad with any varsity experience.
“My tallest kid is about 6-1, 6-2, so we’re going to have to get up and down the floor some,” said Dancy.” “We’ll push tempo and look to play hard. I got a great group of young men that I’m proud of. This summer, they worked as hard as any team that I’ve ever coached. They have put the work in, and they want to be better. We’re going to push the tempo and get after it.”
JCM is scheduled to open up the regular season on the road at Bolivar on Tuesday, November 14. The girls will tip-off at 6:00 p.m. with the boys game to follow.
