Mike Jones and the Saints ready to build on their state championship

Two days after the St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes boys’ basketball team won the first VISAA State Championship in March, the players went right back to the gym to continue to get better. Eight months and many gym sessions later, the team is ready to begin its title defense as their season begins on Nov. 30.

When SSSAS boys’ basketball head coach Mike Jones took over the position in 2017, he instilled a motto of “one game at a time.”

“One game at time means we try to be great at practice,” Jones said. “We feel like if we try to get better each day at practice, it will make our games worthwhile. We coach very hard in practice so when game time comes it’s a lot easier. We try to breakdown every detail, but the main thing is playing with great energy and effort. If you can do that day in and day out, when it comes game time you’re going to play at a high level.”

That commitment to hard work, and the intentionality of progressing day-by-day has been evident during Jones’ first two seasons as head coach. Jones boasts an impressive 45-13 record through his first two years. Last season, he led his team to its first ever VISAA State Championship in almost three decades, their first IAC Championship in seven years, and his team also took first place in the Sleepy Thompson and JP Fund Classic Tournaments. He was also named the 2019 VISAA Division I Coach of the Year.

Above all those things, Jones and rest of the coaching staff has established a united culture both on and off the court that has contributed to the growth of both players and coaches.

“Going into my third year as a head coach I’m excited at the progress of the program,” Jones said. “We have coaches that put in a lot of time, energy, and effort to make this program what it is, and that’s why we’re starting to see the benefit.”

Jones’ coaching style is made up from a large mix of the coaches he encountered throughout his playing career and also his time spent on staff for different teams. The third-year coach set the basketball all-time scoring record at Casady Prep School in Oklahoma City, OK, with 2,328 points, and was named Oklahoma High School Player of the Year in 1994.

He then went on to get his bachelor’s degree from Texas Christian University, where he again earned multiple honors including WAC Defensive Player of the Year as a senior. Jones then had an 11-year career in professional basketball in France, Turkey, Poland, Iran and China.

In addition to his playing career, Jones also worked in various roles for Perry Street Prep School, Creighton University and the Brooklyn Nets. Jones then joined the SSSAS staff as an assistant coach for in 2016, and was promoted to head coach in 2017.

“I was fortunate enough to play for a ton of different coaches playing in college and overseas,” Jones said. “I picked up a lot of things, I always knew I wanted to coach so I wanted to take advantage of every moment when I played in Europe. I’m big on skill development, we do a lot of skill work the first 35 minutes of practice. Working with Coach (Lionel) Hollins in the NBA (taught me to) break down film and see it from a different lens than from a player point of view.”

As Jones approaches his fourth year with SSSAS and his third as head coach, he is excited to see how his players have progressed.

“Each year the team takes on its own identity–that’s the fun thing about coaching, each year is totally different,” Jones said. “We’re looking forward to seeing what this year holds. I think we’re starting to get noticed not only in the Alexandria area, but in the DMV area.”

SSSAS is ranked 61st on Max Preps top 100 preseason basketball rankings, and last season they finished the year ranked 50th nationally and 2nd in the state of Virginia. Jones acknowledged that many of the key players from last season graduated, but he believes his team is still capable of repeating their success.

“We lost six seniors–four out of six were captains. We’re returning nine seniors, and five juniors that played last year. They’ve been battle tested. We’re looking forward to the season. We have a very difficult schedule, but we look forward to the challenge. We’re going to try to hang our hat on the defensive end, we can do things defensively that we weren’t able to do in the past.”

The team took home the Capitol Hoops Summer League Championship after defeating DeMatha 65-62 in July. SSSAS has won all four of its scrimmages thus far, and outscored opponents 270-208. Jones is excited at the defensive tempo his team has shown, but he believes they still need to improve offensively.

“In the summer we played extremely well on the defensive end, and our first two scrimmages we were phenomenal on the defensive end,” Jones said. “Offensively we need to space better, we need to run the court harder. We do a really good job of sharing the ball, but I would say we can get better at spacing and moving with a purpose. Defensively I’m so excited about this team, from what we can do and where we can go just from the defensive end.”

–TJ Davis