At 0-4, John Tsapelas didn’t see a winless team. Neither did his players. But for different reasons, the John Bowne boys basketball coach said.
Two of the Wildcats’ losses were decided by a combined seven points. He knew they were better, but were being bedeviled by silly fouls and mental mistakes. His players, Tsapelas reasoned, felt the same way, but only because of their self-belief that wasn’t based on any fact.
“Their false confidence and me reassuring them that we were a better team probably helped to build that confidence up,” he said.
The proof is in the Wildcats’ record. Bowne (11-9, 11-5 Queens A West) has won seven in a row and 10 of 11 since the shaky start and has all but clinched its first playoff spot in three years.
On Friday, the Wildcats upset Queens A East leader Springfield Gardens; they have also beaten fellow future playoff teams Newtown, Long Island City, Grover Cleveland and Richmond Hill and sit firmly in second place in Queens A West behind division leader Francis Lewis.
Tsapelas points to a defensive mindset he and assistant coach Rob Diaz instilled after the first four losses. Bowne, senior guard Steve Augustin said, was relying too heavily on 6-foot-5 center Carl Pierre Noel, who he referred to as a “human eraser.” The team began to take pride in stopping the opposition, not how many points it could score. Bowne held Long Island City to 31 points; Grove Cleveland to 34; Bryant to 36; and Francis Lewis to 34.
“If any team is going to beat us, they better have great jump shooters,” said the 6-foot-1 Augustin, who averages four points and seven rebounds per game.
“Everybody plays great defense and believes in the system,” Tsapelas said. “Part of the problem with a lot of kids is it’s, ‘if you score on me, I’m gonna score on you.’ We don’t that mentality. We don’t want you to score.”
That is just part of the story of the program’s rapid transformation. After the shaky start, Diaz and Tsapelas wrote up individual player evaluations, illustrating strengths and weaknesses, as a way, Diaz said, to define roles more clearly. They figured out the Wildcats’ greatest asset offensively was patience and working the ball inside to Pierre Noel and their bigger forwards such as sophomore Sheldon Yearwood and Augustin, not taking jump shots.
Tsapelas demanded a patient offensive approach from the Wildcats, to work the ball around the perimeter until the best shot arose, not the first one.
“With this group of kids, what stands out the most is discipline,” Tsapelas said.
So does Pierre Noel, who is in just his second year playing organized basketball. He has a versatile supporting cast that includes Augustin, junior guard Rashawn Rhoden, senior forward Davidson Jeanpierre, senior guard Donald Sealy, and the sophomores, Yearwood and Jose Cruz around him. Pierre Noel is the only one of Bowne’ players averaging double figures, at 11 points per game, to go along with 14 rebounds. His game has grown refined. He no longer finds himself in instant foul trouble for silly over-the-back fouls or reach-ins.
“As we’re winning, the kid’s game is rising to a new level; you could see great improvement,” Tsapelas said. “This kid plays above the rim. He rebounds, he’s unselfish. If you look at some of the stats, early in the season his free-throw percentage wasn’t that good. He shot between 40 and 60 foul shots every single day, and now his foul shooting has gotten so good he’s leading the team.”
Augustin pointed to the 67-32 win over Lane Dec. 11. Bowne raced out to a 24-0 lead after the first quarter. When the starting five returned to the bench, everybody looked at one another and smiled.
“This is the official start of our season,” Augustin remembered thinking.
Now, the end is nowhere is sight.