Defense the key to Montgomery Academy's strong start
MA’s Braden Gordon has been a big part of the Eagles’ good start to the 2024-25 season. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
Montgomery Academy players have discovered that the best way to generate offense is by playing better defense.
Defense is generally the last thing to develop on a basketball team, simply because players don’t always buy into the unheralded strategy of playing hard on the non-scoring end of the floor.
“I won’t say that at the beginning they weren’t a little reluctant,” Montgomery Academy coach Jeremy Arant said of the defensive strategies installed by assistant coach Reg Mantooth. “Coach Mantooth is kind of old school and he broke it down for them, real simple, and they’re like I’ve been playing basketball for 15 years, I’ve got this part figured out. As time went on and they started seeing results, they really bought into it. And we’ve won a couple of games this year because of our defense.”
Defense, in fact, is now embraced by the Eagles.
“It’s definitely more fun,” said senior Skyler Stovall, the 2024 Capital City Conference Player of the Year. “Defense leads to dunks. And I love dunks.”
Montgomery Academy has opened the season at 14-1, with its only loss at Class 7A Auburn. After watching a 24-8 season come to an end in a double-overtime loss to Sumter Central in the regional semifinals last year, it’s not an unexpected start with the return of four starters from last year’s team.
What might be a little surprising is how the team added sophomore star Braden Gordon and transfer Cade Segars and the changes haven’t been disruptive to what was already expected to be a good team.
“I think that was the biggest thing coming into the season because we knew what we had coming back from last year,” Arant said. “I think it’s just stressing to these guys that it’s going to take everybody to ultimately get to our goal. Their personalities and their willingness and desire to be great has made it easier than you might think. They truly don’t care. DJ (Vinson) is a career 65 percent field goal shooter and really doesn’t care that we don’t run any plays for him. He wants to do his role and he wants to win.
“We knew, coming into the season, that we were going to be pretty good. We knew -- I don’t think anybody else knew -- but we knew what Braden is, we knew what a lot of our young players were and we tried to schedule tougher opponents because of that, people that aren’t necessarily on our schedule every year. We’ve talked to our guys about taking it day by day and not getting caught up in what the score is in this game or that game, more about how I can achieve my goal each day.”
The loss to Sumter Central may have been beneficial in the long run because the disappointing end of the 2024 season to an opponent that reached the state tournament appears to be a motivating factor for the MA players as they prepared for the 2024-25 season.
“I think we’re closer as a team,” Vinson said. “We’re all working together for one goal. Everybody’s trying to go for a state championship. We’re all trying to do our best to make sure that happens. When you’re all working toward one goal, there shouldn’t be a problem to it.”
And a team that is averaging 74.8 points per game has one goal in mind and that is to play better defense.
“I think we harp more on defense this year,” Vinson said. “If we have a high-scoring game, last year it would’ve knocked us out. Defense starts our offense a lot. Once we lock in on defense, it’s been hard to beat us.”
“I think that we’ve really honed in on defense, bringing in Coach Mantooth,” Stovall added. “He’s very defensive oriented. If you miss something on defense, he’s going to be there to tell you, coach you about it. As a team, we’re just getting better on defense.”
The group includes players like forwards Seth Edwards and Graham Martin or guard Cade Segars that would start for the Eagles in other years, but the addition of 6-foot-6 sophomore Jarrett Friendly (who played a reserve role last year) and 6-foot-4 Braden Gordon (who sat out to comply with transfer rules after graduating from a magnet middle school and enrolling at MA) create a more effective starting five in 2025.
“Guys like Seth and Graham Martin are truly leaders for our team,” Arant said. “Seth started a lot of games last year and now he’s done a really good job of saying I’ll be the best at my role this year and if that means coming off the bench and trying to add a spark, then I’m in. I just want to to be successful.
“And the one guy who generally gets lost in all of this is Jarrett, an unbelievable sophomore who came off the bench last year and is now starting this year. He’s kind of the ‘X’ factor for us because people forget about him a lot. He’s a guy that people can’t plan for.”
Gordon gave opponents something else to plan for when he torched Pike Road for 44 points in a tournament recently but his addition hasn’t seemed to subtract from the product on the court.
“I just play my role,” Gordon said. “I knew it was going to be different at first from what I was used to, but I just had to play my role, don’t do too much and do what I was asked. And that’ll help us win.”
MA will play today in the championship game of the Marlin Christmas Classic in Panama City Beach, Fla., looking for its 10th-straight win.