2022-23 girls basketball preview: Hicks's Eagles turn up tempo

Nov. 28—If you walk into the Paul R. Setser Eagle Field House and see Johnson Central's girls running without a ball involved, it's not because their coach thought they needed extra work on their lungs and legs.

"I told them the first night that they hired me, 'Girls, we don't ever run for conditioning. Only time we run is for discipline,'" new bench boss Jim Hicks said. "But we practice really hard. Everything's geared toward up-tempo.

"On a made basket, we're picking you up full-court, we're gonna get pressure for 84 feet, and that's how we're gonna play."

Hicks expects the Golden Eagles to have lots of possessions and lots of players running them.

"We've got a really good sophomore and junior group right now," Hicks said. "Got eight girls in that group, and then you throw a couple of those seniors in there, we easily could have a 10-man rotation, the way we're gonna play."

It will be a change of pace from last year, when Johnson Central scored the fourth-fewest points in the region en route to a 6-20 campaign.

"Nobody's gonna want to play us come February, March, I'm just telling you," Hicks said. "Don't mind saying that. We're gonna have a chance this first year to compete for a regional championship."

Becca Wright will direct it as the point guard. She earned Hicks's respect early.

"I'm really hard and critical on point guards, and she's really doing great right now," Hicks said of Wright. "I'd say inch for inch, pound for pound, there's not a tougher player in Kentucky than her."

Kaylyn McKenzie (7.0 ppg, 4.6 rpg), daughter of Johnson Central boys coach and assistant principal Tommy McKenzie, has impressed early on, Hicks said.

Taylor McKenzie (no relation to Kaylyn), last year's leading scorer at 8.5 ppg and 4.0 rpg, has recovered nicely from elbow surgery in the fall, per her coach.

Abby Stambaugh led the Golden Eagles in rebounding at 4.7 per game. Hicks said she will be a pleasant surprise, having improved her ballhandling and shooting.

McKinley Cantrell and Emily Jarrell also drew mention as likely rotation members, along with Sophie Younce, whose play Hicks praised. Haylee Marsillett, a lefty, has "an unbelievable upside," Hicks said. Sophomore Maddie Prater played in 12 games as an eighth-grader and one as a freshman before both of those seasons ended with ACL tears — one in each knee. Hicks said Prater's knees look good and she has played well in the preseason.

Each of them — for that matter every player in the program — has improved, Hicks said, since he took over.

The well-traveled coach, who counts the boys programs at Greenup County and Bath County among stops in a head-coaching career entering its 20th campaign, is coaching girls for the first time after taking two seasons off since his last job at Shelby Valley.

Hicks is refashioning a program whose 2021-22 campaign was turbulent from the get-go. Late in the preseason, Tommy McKenzie on a fill-in basis replaced veteran coach Darrin Rice, who was under an investigation that has since resulted in charges.

Johnson Central never got its feet under it in its worst season since going 6-23 in 1990-91.

But the Golden Eagles have a full-time coach of their own again, and he's enjoying the process.

"If somebody told me three or four years ago I'd have been coaching girls basketball, I'd say you're crazy," Hicks said. "But now, I'm thinking, why have I not done this before?

"I'm having so much fun. They're so coachable. I've pushed this group harder than any boys group I've ever had, and I think we're gonna be one of the biggest surprises in eastern Kentucky, and definitely in our region."