One of Kansas’ best prep teams might be a year away from its best, but it’s ready now
.JPG "Andover’s Jack Johnson")
For the past two seasons, Andover hasn’t broken an 11-10 record. The two years before that, it was 9-13.
After a 10-point win over one of the best teams in the Wichita area Friday night, Andover became the sixth team in Kansas to reach a 14-0 record. And only two seniors scored more than two points in the 75-65 win over Eisenhower.
Andover might be a year away from its best season in school history, but that hasn’t stopped the Trojans from setting high goals. They want 2020 to be the best the city has seen.
“We want to win state,” junior Isaiah Maikori said. “We want to win our league, which we basically just did. We want to win sub-state. There’s a lot of goals, and we’re on our way.”
With Friday’s win over Eisenhower, Andover has a two-game lead in its league standings, and with a flawless record, the Trojans are almost a lock to host a sub-state tournament.
Andover hasn’t been to a boys basketball state tournament since the 2012-13 season, when the Trojans finished 17-6. They are already three wins away from equaling the win total from that state run.
Why? It started in November.
“We wanted to be more competitive in practice,” coach Martin Shetlar said. “Our practices make kids go hard. I thought we were kind of soft these past few years. We did days off. We really don’t do that anymore. The day before games, we are in the gym, diving on the floor. We expect that.”
Shetlar is in his third season at Andover. He hasn’t known anything other than an 11-10 season. When asked what he learned from those first two stagnant seasons, he laughed and said, “A lot.”
Last season, Andover fielded one senior. The Trojans were one of the youngest teams in Kansas and played like it on the road. They were 7-2 at home but 2-7 on the road.
Friday, they showed their experience.
Andover hit six three-pointers in the second quarter alone. It was one of the most prolific eight minutes in school history. Eisenhower coach Steve Blue called three timeouts to try to kill the momentum. None worked as Jack Taylor and Harper Jonas each drilled a trio of three-pointers.
After the first quarter, Eisenhower held onto an 18-17 lead. By halftime, it was 41-24.
Eisenhower powered back under the direction of senior point guard Jordan Vincent. The Tigers clawed back into a three-point game midway through the fourth quarter behind Vincent’s 34 points.
Last year’s Andover team would have folded under Eisenhower’s wave of momentum. Instead, the Trojans showed enough poise to get the win.
“It’s chemistry,” junior Jack Johnson said. “That’s how you win. We trust each other. We’re basically brothers out there.”
Johnson has been the driving force behind Andover’s arrival on the Kansas basketball scene. When he arrived at Andover, he was touted as one of the top freshmen in a loaded 2021 class that featured the likes of Wichita Southeast’s Jackie Johnson and Wichita East’s Daylan Jones.
In the win over Eisenhower, Johnson scored a team-high 20 points and was responsible for many more with his creation in the paint.
With talented juniors like Johnson, Maikori and Kaleb Gaddis, it would have been easy for Andover to put off state championship-level success for next season. Johnson said the time is now.
“Last year was kind of like a build up year,” Johnson said. “The one year difference was a big deal for us. We’re older, matured, and we’ve all played together since middle school.”
There was one final motivating factor for the Trojans this season.
In 2019, only one boys team brought home a basketball state championship. That team played its home games fewer than 10 minutes down Andover Road.
Top 5 selection Xavier Bell and the Jaguars of Andover Central won their first state championship, beating Basehor-Linwood in the final.
Coming into this season, Andover hadn’t beaten Central since Dec. 21, 2017. But watching Andover Central win state last year inspired Shetlar going into 2019-20.
Over the summer, Andover went to the Kansas State Team Camp and won games. The Trojans came back to the Wichita area and beat some of the best teams in the area in a summer league at Kapaun Mt. Carmel. Shetlar said the confidence kept building into what it is today.
Andover beat Central 68-51 on Jan. 14 this season, but the Trojans have their sights on more now — not later.
“This is kind of the vision I had when I came here,” Shetlar said. “We were watching Andover Central and kind of thinking to ourselves, ‘We can be that. We can do that.’ ”
This story was originally published February 7, 2020 at 11:13 PM.