Boys basketball banquet closes door on 2024-25 season, turns page to prepping for 2025-26

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

In the final game, the players from the team with superior experience played like it and the younger one too often showed its youth, but that didn’t prevent ninth-year Chesterton basketball coach Marc Urban from seeing the bigger picture of the season, the one that reveals all the progress the players made.
Urban shared at Tuesday night’s basketball banquet that a friend texted him the day after watching a game and told him that this year’s team reminded him more of the 29-1 state-runner team of 2021-22 than any team since because of “how hard we played, how connected we played, how together we played, and I thought that was a really good sign, a really good credit to these guys and I told them in the locker room the next morning that the one thing about this town, if you play that way, if you do it the right way, then they will come and support you.”
Urban also said that this year’s team restored the culture of the program that was on hiatus in some areas last season, one of those areas being something as small but important as the cleanliness of the locker room.
Chesterton finished 15-9 with a 4-3 record in the DAC.
Not to fall into the trap that the NCAA tournament selection committee does by giving credit to schools for losing to quality opponents, but it is interesting that four of Chesterton’s losses came against teams playing this weekend in semi-state games (Crown Point, Fishers in 4A; East Chicago Central, South Bend St. Joseph in 3A) and that doesn’t count the two losses in three games vs. a loaded Portage squad that came an overtime loss to Crown Point from making it to semi-state.
“I’m glad that we had this banquet tonight so we can close this season and jump into next season right away because there are a lot of things we have to get better at and be aggressive with, but it was a very successful season in a lot of ways, and it was a credit to these guys,” Urban said.
The coach also thanked the parents for letting him coach their boys as hard as he needed to in order to get them closer to their ceilings as basketball players, his coaching staff and strength and conditioning coach Matt Wagner.
Listed in the order Urban presented them, the six players who were given awards and Urban’s comments, some to the audience, some directly to the player:
Sophomore Tobias Ray, assists award: “TJ, you forget that he’s a sophomore because I feel like he’s been in our gym with us forever (as son of assistant coach Tim Ray). TJ really cares about in this program. He cares about us winning so much. It’s such a good thing. He’s wanted it for so long, and I think throughout the year he kind of came into his own. In a way, I was a coach’s son too, even though my dad never coached me, but I always wanted to just please the coach in a way, and I don’t think that was the right way to do it. If you just play and win, and let yourself go, you kind of change and I think TJ took that big jump throughout this year. Last year, Tyler (Parrish) was the 1 and TJ stood off in the corner shooting 3s and kind of watched what Tyler did and then got thrown into the fire. There were a lot of very tough conversations that we had just trying to continue to get him better and I thought throughout the year he started playing really, really consistent for us. I was going through our stats, and he averaged 4-1/2 assists in DAC games and that was a lot higher than I thought. Our guys got a lot of shots with his penetration. I think his best basketball is still ahead of him.”
Junior Caden Schneider, most improved: “Caden was a no-brainer for me in most improved from where he was last year at this time, to where he was probably Game 3 this year, to where he was the first Portage game, January 3rd, to where he was in the Portage game here. And I think it was his willingness to just keep fighting through. As a coach, I feel my job is to bring the very best out of you and I always feel there is more in you. I don’t know what it was, but I felt he finally let himself go and started having some really big games. He hit some big 3s. He got some big rebounds. The block that he had on (Portage’s Daylon) Powell (late in 44-42 victory) was impressive. His growth was huge. I think the challenge for everybody is, what’s that jump going to be like next year. I think that if he continues to let himself go the way that he has he’s going to continue to get better. We need you to be really good, so we’re hoping you have that big jump again. Caden’s a great kid and I feel good about you being the most improved and we’re excited about the growth that you’re going to have this summer.”
Jaylon Watts, rebounding award: “Jaylon is really, really consistent in basketball and in life. There are times we have to readjust your mood on the court sometimes. But from a consistency standpoint of what he does on a day-to-day basis, you always know what you’re getting from Jaylon. I also think you always know what you’re getting from him in the school day, too. He’s always the same. He never gets too high. He never gets too low. You feel bad getting on him sometimes because he’s such a nice kid and he’s so consistent, but you know you’ve got to bring it out of him. There are a lot of times we get done with a game and he’s leading us in assists or rebounds.”
Logan Pokorney, most valuable player: “The thing with Logan is he’s always been a very serious kid in a really good way because he cares. When I talk to college coaches about him, I’m like ‘Whatever box you’re looking to check as far as a person, work ethic, taking it seriously, grades, treating people right, just go ahead check all of those boxes off and let’s move onto the next question you have.’ My favorite conversation that we had, sometimes I’ll call these guys on a Saturday afternoon or a Sunday just to get their thoughts, and he said ‘I feel like I want to lead, but I just don’t know how to do it yet.’ I thought it was a very insightful comment because he knows he’s one of our best players. He knows it’s his time to lead, and he asked me how to do it. I think he started figuring it out as we went through it. I compliment all these guys on the locker room being clean, and I’ll see Logan all the time putting stuff in the lockers and shoving it in there, so it is clean. And the other guy who did that in my program is Chris Mullen. He understands how important that stuff is, and I think he started becoming more vocal on the court. At the beginning of the year when they huddle up, him and TJ started really saying things that made sense to what we had to go accomplish. The more and more you go through the leadership piece of it, because it’s not easy, the more comfortable you become with it, the better you get at it but he’s an easy guy to follow because he does everything right. Just like everybody, he’s got to take a big jump, and I know he’s going to work extremely hard to make that jump and we’re excited for his progression.”
Robert Williams, mental attitude: “I always feel in our program that it’s very difficult to be a four-year guy just because it’s competitive, it’s a 4A school, it’s tough, it’s hard, OK, I get that. Robert, where he was as a seventh grader, as an eighth grader, as a freshman, to be standing here today is a complete credit to the type of kid that Robert Williams is. For me, looking at what can your program do for the kids, you want them to be better people, tougher, when they go out into the real world. Robert is a tough kid. I would hire Robert in a heartbeat. He obviously did not play as much as he probably wanted to. I totally get that. But he understanded how important it was to go at Bradly (Basila) each day. He understood what it meant to go at Caden each day, and to just keep coming with a great attitude and working as hard as he possibly can. I think the one thing you always want is the respect of your teammates, and I think that every one of these guys has the utmost respect for Robert Williams in how he's gone about his basketball career with us. I know he’s going to be extremely successful in whatever he does. I’m really proud of Robert. He works hard, he’s a good kid, and he is funny.”
Anthony Gonzalez, sportsmanship:
“If I gave this to Ant last year, I don’t know if that would have been a smart choice. Last year, he was always trying to fight people. … He always kept guys really connected. Not that guys were disconnected, but he always kept guys connected in what we did. As we got going through the season, he really understood his role. I’m going to go make it as hard as I can on Jaylon. I’m going to go get into Logan and I’m going to (tick) him off in any way I possibly can, and he did. … We might put our best six, seven together. He might have been on the other team, and he would go win and he would make sure they knew about it for the next three days. That’s the kind of competitive spirit that we need. I think some of those compliments I got it was because Anthony saw that ball and he dives, and got it and flips it up to Jaylon or Logan they put it in.”
The Trojans return 99% of their free-throw attempts, 96% of their points, 96% of their assists and 92% of their rebounds.
Freshman Bradly Basila and sophomore Malachi Ransom will be with the team all summer for the first time and freshmen Cooper Huwig and Tommy Kostbade gained valuable experience playing mostly for the JV, as did sophomore Gunner Ello.
Motivated by the work ethic of the players in the program, varsity assistant coach Adam White texted to Urban that “There’s a storm brewing in Chesterton basketball.”
Many already looking forward to next season feel the same way.