In basketball, a team getting younger means the time for rebuilding has arrived. A heartbreaking loss in a playoff game is often the first falling domino to set an overhaul into motion.
Feeling galvanized, the Tift County Blue Devils are not looking to rebuild, but to reclaim. The Blue Devils finished 26-3 last season and appeared poised to return to the GHSA state championship game. In the second round of the state playoffs, Tift led unranked Milton by nine points on its home floor in the fourth quarter but failed to hold the lead.
Leading 54-53 in the waning seconds of regulation, the Blue Devils deflected a pass by Milton sophomore Justin Brown, who recovered the ball with enough daylight to launch a desperation three-pointer. The shot found the bottom of the net and sent the heavily-favored Blue Devils packing.
Returning five seniors, including three key starters – team captains P.J. Horne, Fred Lloyd, and Micah Johnson – the youthful Blue Devils still figure to be favorites to win the Region 1-7A crown. According to head coach Eric Holland, the sour taste of falling short is still on his team’s palate, serving as a painful motivator for the coming season.
“We got hit in the mouth,” Holland said of the last-second loss. “We’ve got a nasty taste in our mouths. We blew an 11-point lead, and a guy hits a clutch three at the buzzer to send us home. That image is posted in our locker room; that taste is still in our mouths. And every day we practice, we constantly remind ourselves of how bad that feels. This group has really been pushing each other, pushing themselves, pushing the coaches, and developing into a really good team.”
“Our goal is still the same,” Holland said. “We want to go undefeated in our region (and) win our region tournament, and we feel like we can hoist another Georgia high school trophy this year against anybody. We’re excited, we’re deep, we’re hungry, we’re focused, and we’re ready to rock and roll. Our expectations are through the roof, and we think we’ve really got a team to win it. We really do.”
Despite a nearly pristine record last season, the Blue Devils were not without adversity. Horne, the team’s leading scorer and rebounder, went down with a torn anterior cruciate ligament. A host of other injuries and off-court issues nagged throughout the season. With an emphasis on a ‘next man up’ mentality, the potential roadblocks yielded necessary growth among the team’s freshmen.
“We were injury-riddled last year,” Holland said. “Losing our best player for the season with a torn ACL, losing our big man to a broken rib, losing a guy off the bench with a popped hamstring, losing another player that got in trouble off-campus was tough. Being able to play a lot of those younger guys was important.”
“We lost about four or five key guys, so (last year) really prepared us for this year,” Holland said. “Depth is going to be a real positive for us. We’ve got unbelievable leadership with PJ, Micah, and Fred Lloyd. We’ve got a good mix of young talent that stepped up last year and replaced a lot of guys we lost and played valuable minutes in our scrimmage.”
In terms of what the team would like to improve on this season, Horne points to the team’s struggles to put games away when they have the opportunity.
“Game management,” Horne said flatly. “We have to be able to close out games in crucial moments. That playoff game last year, we were up 11, 12 points and couldn’t close it out.”
An emphasis for Holland heading into the season has been honing in on the little things and building consistency on both ends of the floor.
“Our goal is to improve on the little things every day,” Holland said. “Once you do that, you’ll have a really good team at the end. We just want to have a balanced approach in everything we do and show gains in every essential area that can impact the game: loose balls, rebounds, free throw percentage. The biggest thing for us is to be consistent in everything we do each and every night.”
Unsurprisingly, building consistency on a team must go farther than the head coach. In Horne, Johnson, and Lloyd, the Blue Devils have the unique luxury of having three team captains. The trio have been teammates since middle school, and their familiarity makes their partnership quite seamless.
“We communicate so well,” Lloyd said. “We have a good friendship, always hanging out together, so that helps us with the team and bringing leadership. Me, Micah, and PJ have been together since middle school, so it’s always been fun playing with them.”
According to Holland, having three captains gives the team a dynamic voice of reason that any coach would love to have on the roster.
“The beauty of this team is that all three captains are different,” Holland said. “PJ is a quiet leader – all work and no say. Micah is an all-work and a lot of say type of dude. He’s our most vocal leader. Fred is our emotional leader. He’s going to be the one that brings the energy, takes the charges, gets on the floor, and tangles up with guys in the paint. These are the best three captains I’ve had in 16 years as a head coach. They’re all different, but they’ve all got great leadership.”
Every Monday rather than practicing, the Blue Devils hold a team meeting, a worship session with the team chaplain, and participate in team-building activities to, as Holland put it, “put the basketball down and just work on brotherhood and bonding.” Every second and fourth Sunday, the Blue Devils players and coaches attend church together. Every second and fourth Saturday, the team conducts a mentoring program known as G.E.N.T.S. (Guiding, Empowering, Nurturing, Transforming, and Strengthening) for youths.
Every year, the Blue Devils also have their annual shut-in, where the team reports on a Friday night at 11 and sleeps in the gym, eats dinner, prays, and practices together to build team chemistry.
“All of those things equal success for us,” Holland said.
Micah Johnson, the Blue Devils’ senior point guard, averaged 8.6 points, a team-leading 5.3 assists, 2.9 rebounds, and 1.4 steals per game last season.
Johnson, who recently committed to Alabama State, plans to major in physical therapy but has a passion for coaching. Holland has high hopes for his floor general as his career progresses.
“He’s going to be an unbelievable coach,” Holland said. “He wants to be a college coach and probably will have a chance to coach in the NBA when he’s done playing because he has a high basketball IQ, he knows the game, and he gets us into any set. His ability to play off the ball has been a plus for us. This year he’s going to be able to come off the ball and play off screens, and that’s been really good for us. His leadership on and off the floor, the way he relates to the kids and the way he directs traffic, is special. He’s a gym rat. He stays in the gym and studies film a lot. He knows his opponent and knows the other team he’s going against just as good as some of the coaches on the staff. He really puts a lot of time in.”
Putting in the time is crucial for Lloyd as well. A standout wide receiver for the Blue Devils’ football team, Lloyd has signed a football scholarship with the University of South Florida. On the court, Lloyd likens his game to Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green. Green, despite being undersized, has become one of the most valuable role players in the NBA with his grit, guile, and ability to provide whatever the team needs to win.
Lloyd averaged 7.2 points and 5.7 rebounds per game while shooting 54 percent from the floor.
“I’m a scorer and another rebounder up front,” Lloyd said of his role. “I have to be more aggressive. Some teams we play against have guys a lot bigger than I am, so I have to be aggressive in the game.”
Horne, Lloyd’s front-court mate, blossomed into one of the top forward prospects in Georgia. Despite being limited to just 10 games last season, Horne’s 16.9 points, 8.1 rebounds, and 1.1 blocks per game made for a noteworthy season statistically. Horne garnered enough attention to have a profile and his highlights posted on NBADraft.net as a potential pro prospect in the years to come.
Six months after tearing his ACL, Horne looks to be recovering nicely. During a recent preseason scrimmage, the 6-foot-6 forward went for 36 points, 14 rebounds, six assists, and five blocks. Such a performance sums up what Holland thinks of his star.
“PJ is probably the most dynamic player in the state with really no high-major offers,” Holland said. “He was a center as a freshman, but now he can play all five positions on the floor. He’s just transformed his game into being a versatile player that can help us in any area we need him. His growth and willingness to work on his game says a lot. For him to come back from an ACL in six months and be about 80 percent, he looked like he was back in old form – very active, very live. We feel good about his development and what he’s going to bring every night. He’s a walking double-double.”
Horne projects as a small forward at the college level, and his game is drawing lofty comparisons to two proven NBA commodities: Jae Crowder of the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers veteran Luol Deng.
“I agree with Coach comparing me to those players,” Horne said. “What separates me from everyone else in the state is my age. I’m a lot younger than people think I am, and I feel I have a lot of potential to grow. From my freshman year to now, I’ve always come back with something different in my game.”
Going into the 2016-17 season, the Blue Devils envision sophomores such as guards Tyree Marshall and Marquavious Johnson having breakout performances.
“This year’s team is very motivated, very young, and very skilled,” Horne said, comparing this year’s team to last year. “To be very young, they have a lot of talent.”
“We’ve got three really good point guards,” Holland said. “Tyree Marshall was an unbelievable player in middle school, played varsity last year, and played significant minutes. Last year, he made some young kid’s mistakes, but this year he’s been the three Cs: cool, calm, and collected. Marquavious Johnson is probably the hardest-playing kid I’ve ever coached already. All summer long he was probably our second-best player just in team stuff and shooting the ball. We’ve got three really good sophomores that can come in and give us good minutes, so we’re really excited about that.”
With their sights set on atoning for last season’s crushing loss, the Blue Devils want to make their presence felt from the opening tip and re-introduce opponents to the true definition of Blue Devils basketball.
“Fast and furious is the Blue Devil tradition,” Holland said. “Fast on offense, furious on defense – 94 feet of heat both ways. We’re going to attack baseline to baseline on both ends. That’s our kind of basketball.”
Bouncing Back Better
(ITG December Issue 2016)
Written by: Shane Thomas
Photography by Marque Milla Reese
