Booker basketball turns the page on unexpected season

No team feels satisfied when it loses in the playoffs. The end of the season brings anguish and disbelief. For a senior class, those feelings are amplified.

That does not mean, though, that players have to hang their heads all offseason. For the Booker boys basketball team, the best is yet to come, and that is enough for the Tornadoes and its fans to take pride in what the team accomplished this past season.

It was the first under coach Markus Black, who previously coached the JV squad. It began ominously. Sophomore Johnnie Williams IV said that the team was having an issue gelling during preseason workouts, perhaps because they were lining up against themselves every day. At first, it was just words. Then, it turned physical, with players giving an extra edge to their fouls on drives to the paint and shoving each other down. Even once the season began, some players weren’t happy with the playing time they were receiving, senior Eunique Arnold said. The team sat at 1-3 through its first four games -- a less-than-ideal start.

 The team had nowhere to go but up. Thankfully for Booker, up they went. Arnold said that Black threw the gauntlet down: If players were more concerned about their own playing time and stats than accomplishing the team’s goals and putting the Tornadoes first, they would not play at all.

This got the team’s attention, Arnold said. It prompted everyone on the team to play unselfishly. The team’s chemistry got better, and the team’s play dramatically improved. Booker won 14 of its next 15 games. That is an impressive run for anyone, but especially so for a team led in large part by three underclassmen: sophomores Williams IV and Jordan Clark, and junior Jaylen Jones.

Booker finished the season 20-8, the team’s best regular-season record since 2005-2006, when it went 22-4 and won a state championship. To expand the context of this achievement further, the Tornadoes were 13-11 last year. This is a level of success that the program has not seen in a long time, and it came out of the blue.

The playoffs promised to be a challenge. Booker has recently struggled to make it out of its district, losing in the first round four years in a row. The team fixed that, though, by downing Lake Wales 80-74. They lost to Sebring in the Class 6A District 10 final, but still advanced to regionals, and for them, that was enough.

Awaiting Booker in the regional quarterfinals on Feb. 16 was Tampa Jesuit, which went 22-5 in the regular season and featured senior guard Stevie Darst, who will be playing Division 1 basketball at Loyola next season. Arnold said that his non-basketball friends at Booker all told him that they had no chance to win. A reaction to seasons past, probably, but Arnold and co. took it as a personal challenge.

In a back-and-forth battle, Booker won. Williams IV led the way with 26 points and eight rebounds. Clark added 21 points himself, and Arnold, who called the game the highlight of the season for him personally, had 19.

The win brought yet another matchup with district rival Sebring in the regional semifinals on Feb. 21, and again, Booker would fall. The Tornadoes finished the year 1-3 against the Blue Streaks. The loss hurt, and Williams IV said that he thought the team was capable of making a much deeper playoff run, but in the wake of so many down years for the program, the players know that this season was a success.

Despite the loss, Black is not done coaching. He is already working after school with any players who want to refine their games, and is actively calling schools and showing film of all six of his seniors in an attempt to get them into college.

What was recently a program in disarray is now on the rise. With Williams IV, Clark and Jones all returning starters next season, plus key junior Frederick Francois, Booker has a chance to repeat its surprising success, and Arnold believes it will.

“They’re going to make it even farther than we did,” Arnold said. “With three starters coming back and some JV kids ready to fit in and fill empty spots, they can be great. I’m excited for them.”