Taste of success
Dublin Coffman’s Banks guides Shamrocks to 23-2 record, builds strong foundation
Before the season started, Dublin Coffman girls basketball coach Adam Banks expected it to be a stressful year. Coaching is never stress-free, and with the added logistical headaches that came with dealing with an ongoing pandemic, there was every reason to expect this season to be challenging.
But Banks quickly realized that while the logistics were more stressful than ever, the basketball side of things was almost effortless. h A look at the All-metro girls basketball teams, including player of the year Emma Shumate of Newark, right. 4C
“The kids were so easy that it made everything flow,” Banks said. “Normally, in a year you have a bunch of basketball problems. We didn’t have any basketball problems. We had kids that were just thankful to have a season. All of the stress that the coaches had, the kids kind of alleviated that with just coming in every day ready to work, ready to get better . ...
“As a coach, when you have a group like that, the basketball part on the court is easy. That part being easy allowed our staff to deal with all the COVID
headaches a little better.”
The Shamrocks had one senior starter early in the season as a few players worked to come back from injury, but for the bulk of the year their starting lineup was two sophomores and three juniors. Despite their youth, they finished the season 23-2 and came within a buzzerbeater of winning a regional championship, leading to Banks being named The Dispatch’s All-metro Coach of the Year.
Banks describes his lineup as “young old people” because of their experience level, and in such a unique season, having that experience was key. Differences from the norm, like not practicing with contact in the hopes of avoiding a teamwide quarantine if someone did test positive for COVID-19, made the early part of the season challenging as coaches and players tried to figure out the best ways to proceed.
Other logistical issues, such as Coffman’s season being delayed mere days before its first game, threw a wrench in Banks’ plans to open the year with an intense schedule to prepare his team to compete for a state championship.
In the original schedule, the Shamrocks were set to play Mount Notre Dame, Archbishop Hoban, Newark, Reynoldsburg and Glenoak in the early part of the season. All of those teams made it at least as far as the regional tournament, and Mount Notre Dame beat Newark in double overtime to win the Division I state championship.
“This team always had expectations to try to get to a state championship,” Banks said. “We started talking about it toward the end of last year. We kind of scheduled our games this year to try to accomplish that goal.”
But through it all, Banks and his Coffman team pulled off asuccessful season. Though they fell short of their goal to win a state title this season, the
Shamrocks will return their entire starting lineup next year, including thirdteam All-metro honoree sophomore Jenna Kopyar, which will ensure that goal remains in the conversation.
The narrow, season-ending loss to Newark to end the season will serve as motivation to do just that.
“When a team talks about a state championship, it’s hard to kind of grasp the understanding that that’s a possibility,” Banks said. “I think them going up to play against Newark and losing in that way, obviously it’s tough to lose, but it let them know, ‘Hey, we’re on that level.’ We lost to the second-place team by two points, and we had an opportunity to win it.
"I think it motivates each and every one of them to get in the gym and have that little added boost of, hey, this is where we want to get to next year and we want to get past that. I don’t even really have to say anything.” bjohnson@dispatch.com @baileyajohnson_