The only undefeated high school basketball team left in Chatham County is the Chatham Charter boys team, which is 15-0 after a pair of wins at the Comet Christmas Classic last week.
The Knights are coming off a 2021-22 season that saw them finish with a 33-2 record after a loss in the 1A state championship game to Hayesville. Chatham Charter has had a winning record in each of the last six seasons under Jason Messier — who has led the Knights to a 119-11 record since the start of the 2018-19 season.
This year, Chatham Charter seems to have hit a new gear on both ends of the floor. The Knights are averaging 71.4 points per game this winter, up from 66.1 points per game last season. They’re also allowing just 32.4 points per game to their opponents, down from 35.1 in 2021-22.
Leading the team in scoring through 15 games is senior Adam Harvey, who is averaging 15.9 points per game to go with 3.3 assists and 3.2 steals. The only other player averaging over 10 points per game is sophomore Brennan Oldham (11.8), while fellow sophomore Beau Harvey is averaging 9.9 points and a team-high 5.1 assists and 4.8 steals per game.
Ahead of his team’s return to the court, Messier caught up with the News + Record to discuss his feelings about the team so far, his thoughts on his impact sophomores and his expectations for the rest of the season.
Your team won both of its game at its holiday tournament last week. How do you feel about where the team is at this point in the season?
JASON MESSIER: We enjoyed our time at the Comet Christmas Classic, hosted by North Stanly. We got a chance to play at Pfeiffer University, a bigger gym. It was a different environment. We’re in a really good spot right now I think. I think offensively, we’re sharing the ball, as we’ve been doing all year. But I think defensively is where we’ve picked it up a notch. We’ve been guarding well with our team defense, and as we saw in the tournament we played in, it caused a lot of problems for the opposing team.
Your team is giving up less than 35 points per game. What are the things you’ve been trying to emphasize in practice to get the guys locked in defensively, both technically and mentally?
On a daily basis at practice we’re working on the fundamentals, especially the fundamentals on the defensive end. We’re just trying to get the guys to understand that — as I think I’ve mentioned to you before — we made a nice run last year and we’re not going to surprise anybody. We’re going to get everybody’s best shot every time we play, it doesn’t matter who the opponent is. We just need to clean up some things defensively that we’ve been able to get away with against some of our opponents. But when we start making that playoff run, we can’t have those lackadaisical defensive mistakes that could cost us a game.
You’re led by senior Adam Harvey, but two players who have had a huge impact so far have been sophomores Beau Harvey and Brennan Oldham. What has it been like watching the two of them grow as players from where they were last year?
Beau has been our point guard. The ball has been in his hands. He’s grown a lot as a leader on the team, where we can trust him to make the right call when it comes to the offensive side. Defensively, he can guard at a high level. I think they’ve both matured at both aspects of the game.
Brennan was the MVP of the Comet Christmas Classic we were just in. He’s really developing that confidence to be able to score from anywhere on the floor. Defensively he’s also been getting after it. I know in our second game he had 10 rebounds. He didn’t have a double-double. I think he ended up with nine points. But then in the championship game he was just a force out there. I think they both have that maturity, and they’re buying what we’ve been selling as coaches. They’re part of that.
You’re about to enter the heart of conference play. What sort of improvements do you want to see your team make before the start of the postseason?
I still think it’s about where we are defensively. I know I said we’ve been playing at a high level defensively, but there is plenty of room to improve, especially in our man-to-man defense. I want them to continue to challenge themselves, find those little intrinsic motivations that you need to have to be successful and figure out what each of their roles are going to be as the season progresses.
You’re coming off the trip to the state final last year. It didn’t end the way you wanted it to, obviously. Can you see the hunger in your players and that desire to get back to that stage?
I can definitely sense it. But we don’t let it consume us. We know that opportunity was there. We know what we need to do to be successful, and we challenge them every day at practice to do those things. We can go back to defense, but I just feel like we have another level in us. I think it’s really going to impact a lot of teams, especially those stronger teams, when you get in the playoffs.
Any worry that your conference schedule isn’t giving you the challenge you need before entering the playoffs?
It’s a thing a lot of people talk about, but I just really believe that we’re doing things the right way, teaching things the right way and playing things the right way, it doesn’t matter who the opponent is. Instead of winning by 20 or 30, we might have a closer game against tougher opponents. We continue to challenge them to do things the right way, and I think that’s going to bode well for us as far as success in the playoffs. We have an MLK game against Eastern Alamance and we still have Seaforth as our last regular season game, as well. So those will be two different types of challenges for us, and we’ll be able to see if we need to adjust anything or continue doing what we’re doing.
Sports Editor Jeremy Vernon can be reached at jeremy@chathamnr.com or on Twitter at @jbo_vernon.