“ Realistically our target date is January the 10th,” Wilkerson said of the date that, coincidentally, was when the Red Devils were scheduled to host archrival New Albany.“ I think at Jeffersonville there’ s two things that are important— the New Albany game and the tournament. Now if it happens before that we kind of feel like it’ s icing on the cake.”
And while Singleton called his injury“ a minor setback for a major comeback,” Wilkerson explained it a different way.
“ It’ s kind of a bittersweet situation,” the coach said.“ It’ s a little bit of bad luck, but at the same time we’ ve tried to turn this lemon into lemonade. And, our guys have done a really good job of embracing the challenge.
“ It’ s done two things for us. Number one, it’ s given us the opportunity to grow as a program without one of our franchise players. And then the second thing that it’ s done, it’ s put some other guys in the position where they had to mature very quickly because they got thrust into a position that they weren’ t used to.”
In Singleton’ s absence, the Red Devils looked to their four other seniors, including guard Gilly Polk and forward Raijon Laird, as well as junior guards Terrence Nord( a transfer from Rock Creek) and Elijah Cheeks and sophomores Caleb Jones and Jacob Wilkerson.
“ These guys have got some pretty big shoulders, they can carry a lot of weight on them,” Singleton said.“ I’ m very confident and I think they’ ll be just fine.”
So with Singleton on the bench, the Red Devils began their season by hosting Indianapolis Cathedral, a team that beat them by 50 points two years earlier at Johnson Arena in Wilkerson’ s first game
JEFFERSONVILLE ' S MICHAEL COOPER GOES UP FOR A LAYUP DURING THE CLASS 4A STATE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME.
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