The Alcoa Tornadoes faced the Ripley Tigers in a TSSAA Class 2A state tournament semifinal at the Murphy Center on Friday, March 15, 2024, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The Alcoa boys won 69-64 in overtime. (Photo by Danny Parker)
BY JESSE SMITHEY
The moment was an all-timer, and the smile during it spoke volumes.
With Alcoa leading 36-28 in the first half of a Class 2A state semifinal on March 15, the basketball found senior point guard Jahvin Carter’s hands with 1 minute remaining.
A 5-foot-6 senior guard, Jontravias Phillips of Ripley, dug into the deepest of defensive stances against Carter while the Ripley fan base attempted to spur on a rally.
Carter worked Phillips towards the right wing, going crossover dribble first and then between the legs and then crossover again to his left hand. But on that second crossover, Carter momentarily lost his handle, the ball bounding gently off his left leg.
Phillips did nothing to cause that. But you couldn’t tell that to the Ripley faithful.
They rose to their feet and rained voluminous roars down on the floor to try and faze Carter.
Why?
Pretty simple.
They knew who the best player was on the court.
Carter.
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They understood that the only way to oust Alcoa was to slow him.
He had, just four days before, been named the 2024 Class 2A Mr. Basketball.
He had, one year before, led Alcoa to a state title thanks to a buzzer-beater against Douglass in the 2023 championship game.
And, he had already torched Ripley for 20 points in the first half.
For that fleeting moment, Ripley hoped that Carter might have been wilting and tried to shake him mentally.
Didn’t work.
Carter laughed off the fans’ collective delight and regained his dribble, cooked his defender and went to the rack and scored.
He finished the contest with 40 points and then capped his career the next day with another state championship win over Douglass (32-1) and another state tournament MVP award thanks to a 28-point effort against an unbeaten team known for a suffocating defense.
So picking the 2023-24 5Star Preps Boys Basketball Player of the Year was simply a no-brainer. Carter garnered the honor for a second consecutive year.
Consider it just another accomplishment checked off for him on an already lengthy list.
“I don’t like to feel satisfied. But, in terms of my high school career and finishing up at Alcoa, I’m definitely satisfied,” said Carter, the school’s all-time leading scorer.
“And I wouldn’t want to end on any other note.”
Alcoa (26-13) won its final nine games of the season, all postseason contests. That was a far cry from where the Tornadoes were in mid-December, when they were 6-7 after losses to Hamilton Heights and A.C. Reynolds at the 5Star Preps Classic.
Truth be told, though, Alcoa’s football players weren’t back in basketball form at that juncture. Alcoa had faced a brutally tough schedule, as well, and freshman standout Jamir Dean was still evolving into what would become a very prominent complementary role to Carter.
When the calendar flipped into 2024 and Alcoa faced the District 2-2A gauntlet that included multiple bouts with both Austin-East and Gatlinburg-Pittman, Carter lifted Alcoa onto a plateau above its competition.
Media and fans salivated over the Carter vs. Shane Cherry matchups when Alcoa and A-E played and did the same when Carter played against Gatlinburg-Pittman junior point guard Ty Glasper.
Carter seemingly had to produce night in and night out — and did.
He scored 1,014 points in his senior season alone.
Carter wound up with more than 3,000 career points at Alcoa and averaged 27.4 points per game as a senior to go along with 5.3 assists and 3.9 rebounds per game.
“Now, whether you call that a burden to carry, I don’t know what the right term for it is. He knows and understands that ‘If I don’t play well, we don’t win,'” Alcoa coach Ryan Collins said. “Defining what ‘play well’ means can change from night to night, depending on what scheme. But that’s tough to ask of anybody on any level. For you to have that target on your back, and for us to go against a high caliber school after school, you’re getting their best athletes and their coaches’ best schemes. All of it. All of it is centered around slowing you down, stopping you, taking you out of your element. You still deliver.
“I know ego can sound like a negative thing. But I think it’s what makes him good. I would term it ‘a winner’s ego.’ There’s no doubt, when he steps on the floor, it’s: ‘I have it and I’m going to perform well.’ And, not everybody has that. I don’t think you can give that to somebody. You can try and cultivate it. But that’s a gift. He has that heightened sense that ultimately comes from the unseen work he’s put in and he’s seen himself do it at the highest levels before.”
Carter is just weeks away from taking his game to the next level. He signed with Penn State and will report there in June.
He took a little more than a week off following the championship win to recover physically and mentally from the season’s grind. Since then, he has been preparing for the journey into college basketball.
When the opportunities present themselves, he has talked to current college basketball players and former AAU teammates like Blue Cain (Georgia), Dante Harris (Virginia) and B.J. Edwards (SMU) on what college basketball will be like. Carter has an idea but understands he’ll still have to learn some things as he goes.
“At the end of the day, it’s going to be a jump. It’s going to be a leap. It’s going to be different. Some things you’re going to have to grow into. I try to pick their brains as much as I can, when I can,” he said.
“I feel like the biggest thing will be the physicality and the speed. They always tell me, ‘At the end of the day, you’re playing against grown men. You could be playing against people who are four or five or six years older than you. So it’s just different.’ … My whole life, I’ve always been around older people, just from being around my brother. I feel like that’s prepared me — always being the young kid around and just getting pushed around and always getting back up.”
Carter’s passion for learning the game and hunger to keep improving should serve him well in college, Collins said. The Alcoa coach thinks Carter is just scratching the surface as to what he could possibly be as a player and person.
But the sidebar storyline running alongside Carter’s career in basketball will be just how far-reaching his impact will be within the Alcoa community, where most kids grow up dreaming of leading the Tornadoes to more state football titles.
Perhaps Carter will inspire a new wave of basketball talent there, as well.
“Alcoa is unique in that all those kids know him and he knows all those kids,” Collins said. “Just a small community. And I think that’s what makes Alcoa special. But a lot of times, when you’re the young one, you need to be inspired. I think he has inspired a lot of kids. There are kids in the driveway not simulating (Stephen) Curry and not simulating whoever kids love in the NBA. It’s: ‘I’m Jahvin Carter.’
“He’s shown them a way to do it. I think he’s given kids belief. And sometimes when you’re a kid and nobody has done that in front of you for a long time, in terms of an opportunity to play at the highest level, it’s like ‘I’m putting in a bunch of work for nothing.’ I think he’s done a good job of instilling belief. ‘Hey Jahvin did that. I can do that.’ I think it’s going to have effects for many years to come. And that’s what’s pretty cool — how he’s used his abilities and gifts on the floor to have an impact on the community.”
PAST 5SP PLAYERS OF THE YEAR
2018-19: Ques Glover (Bearden)
2019-20: B.J. Edwards (Catholic)
2020-21: Jakobi Gillespie (Greeneville)
2021-22: Jakobi Gillespie (Greeneville)
2022-23: Jahvin Carter (Alcoa)
2023-24: Jahvin Carter (Alcoa)