Central’s boys basketball team has gone 12 seasons without advancing to the regional playoffs. Caleb Johnson spent the previous two attempting to carve out his niche in the Bears’ starting lineup.
For Johnson, there has been no questioning his role this season, as the junior guard leads the Bears in scoring by a wide margin, averaging 21.1 points per game coming into this week.
Whether Central can move past the district tournament for the first time since 2004 will be answered soon enough, but the Bears (12-8) have locked up the second seed in Class 6A, District 7.
“We started the season a little slow, but we all started coming together as one and putting the pieces together,” Johnson said. “I think it’s not so much being on the court, coming together. It’s being off the court, hanging out a lot with the guys. These guys are like brothers to me. I’d do anything for them.”
Johnson is in his third year starting for Central, having averaged 8.3 points as a freshman and 14.3 as a sophomore. He was made a captain last season, thought admits he didn’t quite feel up to the task at first. Embracing that part of his game has been one of the biggest difference-makers for him this time around.
“He’s definitely one of the hardest workers I’ve ever coached. He got a lot stronger in the offseason,” Central head coach Matt Zandecki said. “I think his leadership started to improve. He came into this season knowing this was his team.”
Opponents are starting to know it, too. Over the first nine games of the season, Johnson was averaging 24.9 points. He averaged 15.5 over the next 10, although he never failed to score in double figures.
“He started out on fire. Since then, everybody tries to take him away. He has to work for everything he gets,” Zandecki said. “I think he’s having a great season. Every shot he takes is contested. He doesn’t get any open looks. He’s shooting a high percentage and getting to the foul line.”
Shooting is one thing Johnson certainly knows how to do. For his career, he has made 148 3-point attempts, and he’s 57-of-130 this season for a 44 percent clip. He had also gone 80-of-100 from the charity stripe over the first 18 contests.
He has always been a shooter, he said, since he first picked up a basketball at such an early age that he doesn’t quite remember when it happened. His grandfather played college ball, and it just seemed to come naturally.
“It’s different from any other game. It’s different from football, it’s different from soccer,” Johnson said. “If I could marry the game, I would. There’s something about putting that ball in that hoop that was always interesting.”
Over his three seasons with the Bears, Johnson has worked to hone and expand his game, becoming more consistent with his shot and more of a penetrator.
“It’s been trusting the process,” said Johnson, repeating the currently popular mantra of the Philadelphia 76ers. “Putting in work hard in the gym, putting up a bunch of shots, lifting weights, all that. It takes time and people don’t understand that.”
It has taken a long time for Central to return to regionals, but this appears to be the most legitimate chance the team has had in over a decade. While nobody has knocked off unbeaten Nature Coast, the Bears split two regular-season meetings with third-seeded Citrus, each decided by a three-point margin.
Those two squads will likely meet in what figures to be a hotly contested district semifinal, and Johnson believes the key to surviving that matchup and possibly challenging the Sharks will be sticking together.
“To go out big, we’d like to win the district, get to regionals as far as we can and make it a season to remember,” Johnson said. “Have no regrets.”
Follow Chris Bernhardt Jr. on Twitter @cpbernhardtjr.