By JEREMY TEPPER
MVI Sports
At Thomas Jefferson, the beginning of basketball season is often filled with growing pains, as the football season ends and those players filter in without much practice.
Last year, the Jaguars won the PIAA football championship Dec. 5, one day before the basketball season started. The Jaguars lost three of their first four games before eventually coming together to finish 16-9 and narrowly losing to Laurel Highlands in the WPIAL semifinals.
This year is different.
A COVID-altered athletics season caused football to end earlier and basketball to start later. Thomas Jefferson won the state football championship Nov. 28, giving the football players two weeks to get ready before basketball season starts Friday.
Longtime Jaguars’ coach Dom DeCicco expects it to be a big boost to his team, which features a number of key football players, such as Jake Pugh and Preston Zandier.
“I think it’s definitely going to help. It’s more the jelling of it than the rust,” DeCicco said. “What hurt us — and what hurt everybody – is not having the kids for spring and summer, so you can get that jelling aspect.
“That’s really what we’ve got to work on now, and that’s why having the football guys right now is a big factor.”
DeCicco said the last time there was such a gap between the end of the football season and beginning of the basketball season was in 2014, when the football team uncharacteristically got knocked out in the WPIAL semifinals, three weeks before basketball season started.
The basketball team went 23-4, although DeCicco believes that team was destined to do well regardless.
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