Boys basketball notebook: Cedar Rapids Jefferson, RoyShawn Webb get huge first victory

CEDAR RAPIDS - As he has worked his way through the vagaries of his first season as a head varsity basketball coach, RoyShawn Webb has been guided by one postulate.

It came courtesy of Jason Edwards, who is one of his assistants at Cedar Rapids Jefferson and a former head coach himself.

“He always tells me ‘You know things aren’t always as bad as they seem, but they're not always as good as they seem, either,’” Webb said. “So that's a quote that I've kind of been living by this season.”

Tuesday night has allowed Webb to test out the latter part of the Edwards-inspired principle. Finally.

Jefferson won its first game, knocking off Waterloo West, 74-69, at the J-Hawk gym. Starting out 0-15 will test anyone’s resolve, and certainly that was the case with these guys.

Which made having something tangible to prove their improvement incredibly meaningful.

“I would describe it as kind of like, at least for me, a relief,” Webb said. “In the sense of I wanted our team to play a certain way this year, and I understood that it was different from how they were asked to play in the past. It takes time and, you know, there were times throughout the season where I'm like ‘OK, am I crazy or am I delusional for thinking that we can play at this (increased) pace and do these things and think that we're going to be effective?’

“So that win kind of, not necessarily for myself, but for our guys and our players was important. Let's show them ‘Hey, you know we can play this way and win games.’”

Webb took over the program this season, a 25-year-old Jefferson grad who loves the west side and wants to make a difference. He prefers an uptempo style of play, which has been a transition for his players.

Jefferson has taken some beatings this season, but you could kind of feel a win coming. It lost three of its previous four games by nine points or less, had a chance in each and every one.

The J-Hawks got it done Tuesday, overcoming a bit of a deficit in the fourth quarter and finishing strong to beat a Waterloo West team is 6-10.

Webb said Jefferson got something from everyone in its win. It has been starting seniors Eric Smith, Ryen Feickert and Zach Thielman, as well as juniors Jayden Faulkner and Ian Eirp.

“Waterloo West has beaten some, some pretty good teams this year, so we knew they were going to be tough. And they do a lot of good things too,” Webb said. “But, yeah, absolutely, these last couple games we had within the last week, we're like ‘OK, we're right there.”

Webb said he got a lot of celebratory water poured on him in the locker room after the game.

“Then I took a moment, sat in my office and just kind of soaked it in and enjoyed the moment,” he said. “Then I thought to myself ‘OK, this is great, but we’ve got to keep working. We’ve got to keep building this up and find ways to win some more of these games we’ve got coming up.”

Jefferson plays Friday night at Cedar Rapids Xavier.

Around the hoop

– Montezuma’s Brady Boulton went over the 2,000-point mark for his career Tuesday night in an 18-point game for his team in a win over BGM. Boulton is the 45th player to accomplish the feat, joining Braves assistant coach Trey Shearer.

“To be in elite company like this is always something I’m going to hold on to,” Boulton told the Southeast Iowa Union. “It makes me reflect on everything back to when I was three years old touching a basketball for the first time to now seeing all the work I’ve put in and all the people I’ve played with.”

– The first batch of conference champions have been crowned in the last week. They are Iowa City Regina (River Valley South Division), Bellevue Marquette (Tri-Rivers East Division), Hillcrest Academy (Southeast Iowa Super Conference South Division) and Lynnville-Sully (South Iowa Cedar League).

Maquoketa Valley can wrap the Tri-Rivers Conference West Division with a win Friday night against North Linn. If the Wildcats lose, they would share the title with Springville.

– Cole Moser made seven 3-pointers to break a North Fayette Valley school record in a game earlier this week against MFL/Mar-Mac.

– District and substate brackets for Class 1A and 2A should be released Friday by the Iowa High School Athletic Association.

Comments: (319)-398-8258, jeff.johnson@thegazette.com