Leo’s aggression throughout the 2020-21 season has come in waves. It propelled them to being one of the final two undefeated teams in the area and has helped them claim a spot in Saturday’s Class 3A North Semistate at Elkhart.
It makes sense then that the Lions are buoyed by a pair of post players who are coached to ebb and flow with their aggression. Senior Zack Troyer and junior DJ Allen have become a significant part of Leo’s success by being able to be versatile big men and change their aggression throughout games.
“You can ask them what I tell them before literally every single game,” Leo coach Cary Cogdell said. “Get to the half with one or zero fouls, then you can be more aggressive in the second half. That’s the thing that we talk about the most.”
“He hounds on it!,” Allen said of Cogdell’s emphasis on their interior play. “He talks about it all the time. That’s our strength.”
Post play has become somewhat of a lost art in all levels of basketball in recent years. Analytics show that offensively, the best rate of points per possession do not come from a traditional post-up game. Yet in northeast Indiana, we’ve seen post play flourish in the past five years. Often, some of the most successful teams in our area have guys who can really take over games in the post. Leo saw it first hand from the other side of things last season with Norwell’s Will Geiger, who led his team to an unbeaten mark in the Northeast 8, including topping conference foe Leo. That came just as the Lions were starting to kick things into a higher gear with their own interior tandem.
This season, things have just continued to skyrocket.
The paths for Troyer and Allen have been a little bit different. Allen came into high school with a bit more attention and was a varsity starter as a freshman. Expectations were high from the get go and he has rarely disappointed in living up to those. He has grown taller and added mass and physicality to his game over the past three seasons, partially attributed to his growing success on the football field. Allen’s inclusion to Leo’s roster for the 2018-2019 season started to shift the Lions to the fact that post play was going to be alive and well in the program.
Cogdell, when talking about post play, emphasizes that pros like Anthony Davis should shift the concept of what people look at with posts. They don’t have to just be one dimensional and that is where Troyer and Allen have come into play and why they feel like they’ve been able to handle advanced expectations better.
“I feel that I’ve handled them very well,” Allen said of those expectations. ‘Every year the expectations have only gotten bigger and I’ve lived up to them thus far. However, I don’t necessarily look to meet those expectations. I try to be the best player that I can be and make the best impact for my team.”
Troyer’s journey has been a bit different. He joined the varsity roster full time just last season as a junior. His length immediately grabbed attention and there were early rumblings of just how good he and Allen could be. For his coach, there was more emphasis on Troyer’s continued growth in the game and working to get to a higher level.
“The growth for Zack between his sophomore and junior year was significant. He’s really had a quite a bit of growth each year but the sophomore to junior year was like ‘whoa,'” Cogdell said. “He was a pretty good sophomore but there was a big jump and we really felt like the two of them paired together were going to be hard to deal with on both ends of the floor.”
“Last year when Zack started playing varsity, I started to see his potential. He had progressed rapidly through the off-season and started to become more of a dominant player,” Allen said. “Knowing that the both of us would be working together made me realize just how great we could be. After the first few games that we played together, it really started to show exactly what we were capable of accomplishing.”
For Cogdell, playing more straight up before halftime for his pair of posts is more significant on the defensive end. Although both Troyer and Allen are scorers, including a combined 21 points in the first half of last Saturday’s regional title win, they can be game changers and stoppers for Leo’s defense.
Considering the versatility of Leo’s opponents throughout the 2020-21 season, it has been important to play solid defense. The Lions give up just 49.5 points per game, just outside the top 50 in the state. But along the way, they’ve had to adjust their defense to a variety of teams, schemes and skills. Through all of that, Troyer and Allen have been expected to stay consistent as sometimes the last line of defense between opposing players and the rim.
Teams have been held in the 30s in points seven times against Leo this season, including holding East Noble to 30 points on January 23. On the flip side, the Lions have given up as many as 84 points to Snider. Still, in giving up that amount, the Lions were victorious in overtime, getting the stops they needed down the stretch of a high-intensity game.
Operating under such diverse game situations can often only be possible with a consistency on the defensive end.
“As much as people look at the offensive end of things, it as big if not bigger, their impact on the defensive end; to have that length, to have that rim protector,’ Cogdell said. “Basketball moves in trends. We are kind of old school in that we have two more traditional post players with some skill that also add some length at the rim and with that comes rebounding as well. We are just fortunate. How many high school teams do you see with two of them?”
Offensively, the pair has opened up a lot of options for Leo. Over the years under Cogdell, Leo has worn a lot of different hats based on its personnel. Have shooters? Live and die by the three. Have guys that can run? Try to score as much as quick as you can. Have guys that can’t run? Slow it down, extend possessions. But with Troyer and Allen, the Lions are able to play almost any speed and score in almost any way.
Both Troyer and Allen are fairly versatile and move well. They aren’t stuck in the mud like that traditional picture of a basketball post player. They can step out, shoot with a little bit of range and are more than competent with the ball in their hands. As teams are forced to hedge their bets with the bigs, it opens things up for leading scorer Blake Davison, among others, including the capable shooting touch of guys like Xavier Middleton and Eric Steger.
Because of how Troyer and Allen can attack and create around the rim, there is no one right way to defend the Lions.
“This season, both me and DJ have been trying to prioritize making the smart play. Most teams, at this point, will send a double to each of us, so it’s not always about scoring. Taking our time and getting our teammates involved when we don’t have a look is always our priority,” Troyer said. “Likewise every game coach makes it a point of emphasis to work the ball down low and get the defense to shift. Our size is rarely matched and he feels that it’s one of the teams biggest strengths.”
The looks do come to the duo often though. They have given Leo a wide variety of quality second or third chance looks throughout the season too. Both have developed their offensive games significantly, scoring strong at the rim or being creative with reverse scoring opportunities. Last year, there were some missed moments because of inexperience, but now the duo is doing things that aren’t even coached because their veteran instincts kick in, according to Cogdell.
While both Cogdell and Allen say things clicked pretty early last season with the duo, Troyer points to the December 4 game of this season as a real turning point for the pair’s effectiveness.
“I definitely think that after playing Snider this year, where we combined for 50 [points], that we realized that very few teams are going to have two bigs capable of stopping both of us on the same night,” Troyer said.
Like a true yin and yang, the pair continues to compliment each other inside. There is a lot of communication in game, which is something you’d always want to see out of your team, but isn’t always there.
Playing off each other has made Troyer and Allen so much stronger. The pair’s on-court personality is a solid balance Cogdell says. While both good students and very smart on and off the court, those little moments of difference play off each other well.
“Zack is the lighthearted one. He’s always smiling, pretty much always happy and DJ is more intense,” Cogdell noted. “Not that Zack is not intense, but DJ is more you get between the lines and it’s all business. Zack is very focused but their personalities are a bit different.”
Leo takes the court at Elkhart’s North Side gym on Saturday for a 4 p.m. tip-off against South Bend St. Joe in the semi state round with a trip to the state finals on the line.
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