By TODD FERTIG
TopSports.news
A father coaching his son can be complicated. It can also produce some unforgettable moments. Tuesday night’s meeting between rivals Silver Lake and Rossville ended with one of those moments.
Senior Jakoby McDonnell celebrates his game-winning basket in Rossville's 51-50 win over Silver Lake Tuesday night. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
Rossville coach Brandon McDonnell shared a special Senior Night memory with his son, Jakoby, in Tuesday's 51-50 win over rival Silver Lake. [File photo/TSN]
Trailing by one point with 8.7 seconds remaining, Rossville coach Brandon McDonnell called a play to produce a shot for the win. The play broke down due to the roar in the crazed Rossville gymnasium. The coach could do nothing but watch helplessly as his son Jakoby improvised. The senior decided it was up to him to win the game.
“At that point, with just (a few) seconds left, you just got to go down the court and get to the basket, either make it or get fouled,” Jakoby McDonnell said. “I knew once I saw a little bit of space, I was going to get downhill and try to get fouled or get the basket.”
The senior stands just 5-foot-6, but he drove into the teeth of the Silver Lake defense, bounced off the chest of an Eagle defender, and banked a jumper through the rim as the buzzer sounded.
“I’ve been smaller my whole life and I’ve been playing against bigger people,” Jakoby McDonnell said. “So, the only way for me to make something happen…is to go downhill, get a little bit of contact and score or get to the free throw line. It’s just something I’ve always done.”
The shot by McDonnell the player gave McDonnell the coach one of the biggest wins in his four seasons as head coach of the Bulldawgs. And it came just shortly after the McDonnells participated in Rossville’s Senior Night ceremony.
“It was definitely a special moment for me because he’s coached me my entire life and especially on Senior Night and still playing for him,” Jakoby McDonnell said. “Just getting him that (win) with this rivalry, it was just great for both of us.”
“As a dad, you know, he hits that shot and the only thing I could think about is, holy hell, man that was awesome,” Brandon McDonnell said.
It hasn’t always been easy for father or son.
“(Coaching Jakoby) is one of the most amazing things that I’ve felt in my life,” Brandon McDonnell said. “Jakoby came here as a freshman, and we battled heads freshman and sophomore year. If you couldn’t tell, he probably gets that spiciness from his dad. But then a bulb came on and the kid just turned into this really, really awesome point guard. He makes our team go.
“He’s not 6-foot-4. He has to come out with a little bit of smarts, play strong and play together with his team.”
The Rossville senior learned some of those tricks from his father, an undersized guard himself at Topeka High and Baker University.
“When I was younger, when I was like eight years old, we used to play against each other in the driveway or whatever,” Jakoby McDonnell said. “He used to score on me, and I always used to get mad. But then I had to realize that this was once him, always smaller than other people. I figured out a way to just accept it and go out and play the game.”
Jakoby McDonnell has been a varsity basketball player since his freshman season, when his father took on the daunting task of building the Rossville program into a winner. Rossville won back-to-back Class 2A football championships in 2020 and 2021 but went just 1-18 and 3-18 in those subsequent basketball seasons. Playing football into late November, and then seeing many of those athletes opt to participate in the school’s strong wrestling program in the winter, prevented Rossville from succeeding on the basketball court.
Brandon McDonnell, a longtime assistant at Topeka West, saw untapped potential and in the spring of 2022 accepted the challenge of building a basketball team at Rossville. In his first season, with his son seeing some varsity time as a freshman, the Bulldawgs went 7-14. The team hadn’t won more than five games since 2017.
The next season, the Bulldawgs went 15-7, and last year they were 16-8, 8-5 in the Big East League. The Bulldawgs have won a game against archrival Silver Lake in each of McDonnell’s four seasons.
Rossville is currently 13-6, 7-4 in the Big East League, with a home game against Riley County and a trip to St. Marys remaining.
