Coaching carousel: Owen Valley boys basketball hopes veteran hire will spark program

On November 26, JB Neill will find himself in a situation he's never experienced heading into his 16th season as a head boys basketball coach.

Neill was officially hired as the new coach at Owen Valley at last Thursday's school board meeting, hoping to jump-start a Patriots program that has been through some tough times recently. Neill was at Bloomfield for five years before he was let go and spent last season at Martinsville.

He decided to move on, not sure what the future held with his son Blake, Bloomfield's all-time scoring leader, heading into his senior year. Now, it's set: OV will open the season at home against the Cardinals.

"It doesn't bother us," Neill said. "My family respects what we've got to do. I've got a job, my son's got a job. For me it's just another night I get to watch him play and get him better.

"The foundation's been laid for Blake O'Neill. He's old enough I don't have to coach him for him to succeed."

But missing many of Blake's games last year and the long drive to Martinsville caused him to have second thoughts. But leaving also left him wondering what was next. Owen Valley pounced.

Neill takes over for Matt McGowan, who is now working at Mooresville. He was 12-36 in his two seasons, the last one marred by injuries that put a lot of young players and others with little varsity experience on the floor. OV had just three seniors and some promising young players return.

"We're excited," OV athletic director Brad Greene said. "He's just what we were looking for. And it happened to be the right opportunity and good timing for him."

It's not the first time OV tried to bring Neill on board.

"I was at a crossroads, trying to figure out what to do," said Neill, who will be 53 in September. "I've been in education for 26 years, so I'm close to being eligible for retirement. But I wasn't wanting to do that. OV, Brad, he was pretty persistent for several years. The first time they asked, I didn't go.

"Then the same thing happened this year and it just fell into place. It's just 25 miles from my house and I've worked with those guys before. The principal (Robert Boltinghouse) and AD, I knew those guys and that's a great thing. Same thing at Martinsville, those were Class A guys, but I think this is a better fit."

He'll get to know the players and parents better this week and he'll be in the building as a history teacher as well.

The Eastern Greene grad, coached the girls team there before becoming the boys coach at White River Valley from 2009-14. He spent the next season at Shakamak before moving to Edgewood for three years. In 15 boys seasons he is 226-147 with four 20-game winners, four sectional titles and just four sub-.500 seasons.

"He brings in experience and he's bringing wins and discipline," Greene said. "We're looking forward to that."

Neill knows there's some work to do to get the Patriots back on a winning track. OV's last winning season was an 11-9 mark in 2020-21 under Roger Fleetwood, who led the Patriots to their last sectional title in 2019.

"It's just baby steps," Neill said. "We've got to go for small wins. Like with any job opening, there's a reason it's open. There's not too many where they won 20 games and everyone is coming back. Those don't exist. So we say they have to understand it's about winning the little battles and then hope to win the war.

"I've gotten more patience as I've gotten older. Everybody wants to win today but that's not always that case."

As for Blake, he's starting to gain interest from Division I coaches after a busy summer on Puma's NXTPRO Circuit, playing all over the country with a Grand Park Premier squad coached by Dustin Smith, father of Purdue standout Braden Smith.

Evans leaves as Edgewood track/XC coach

Zach Evans has stepped down as head cross country and track coach at Edgewood and as junior high social studies teacher.

He took over the cross country program in 2019 then track the following spring.

"I'm getting out of teaching and it's kind of hard to continue coaching if you're not teaching," Evans said. "I think I got to the point I was only doing teaching so I could keep coaching. The stress of taking all that home, the teaching part, I was done with it. I can be paid a lot more to do other things.

"It's extremely hard to give up coaching, but at a certain point, you have to move on."

The Mustangs had seen several breakthroughs in both track and cross country, boys and girls under his watch.

"I think it's a pretty big deal," Edgewood AD Jerry Bland said. "He's been very successful getting good runners to be great and average runners to be good. He was able to meet kids at their level and created improvements in both programs.

"The numbers have been strong and he did a good job building relationships and the culture of the team. They always came out and performed at a high level."

"I think what I'm most proud of is the kids really believing they had an opportunity to be great and be successful at the highest levels," Evans said. "That was something started by Micah Mobley before me so we built on that foundation."

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Coaching carousel: Owen Valley excited about boys basketball hire