SJCA guard R.J. Marsh keeps opponents guessing with versatile skill set
During the offseason, St. Joseph’s Catholic Academy guard R.J. Marsh worked with his coaches to become a better finisher at the rim.
Marsh set a chair on the 3-point line, where he made a few moves before dribbling into the paint and where his coach waited with a football pad and tried to knock the ball away. Marsh absorbed the contact while looking to finish his layups.
The routine was part of a plan to turn Marsh into a dynamic scoring threat for the Wolves.
“Baseball has your five-tool player,” Wolves coach Richard Ciambotti said. “We wanted him to be like a five-tool offensive player.”
Marsh could already shoot 3-pointers, but he needed to develop the rest of his game. Though it’s still an ongoing process for the St. Joseph’s junior, Marsh has emerged as a go-to scorer for the Wolves this season. Marsh, who leads the team with more than 12 points per game, has left teammates, coaches and fans in awe with his play at times.
He’s drawn the attention of opposing defenses for years.
When Marsh was in elementary school, Ciambotti remembers his future player hitting 10 3-pointers in a row during a game of five-on-five. When he played at Park Forest Middle School, he was the only player on the scouting report for Our Lady of Victory.
SJCA’s Zane Thornburg, who played for OLV, said his team could never stop Marsh.
“We would always double-team him and he would still have 20 points a game,” Thornburg said. “He’s always been really good.”
This year, he’s still working to become that “five-tool” player for the Wolves. He looked to attack whenever he was playing one-on-one or three-on-three. He grew “two or three inches” since last year, too, so he can grab the rim now. He discovered that ability during offseason workouts, and he’s attempted his share of dunks this season.
“I wouldn’t say I’ve thrown down a real dunk in a game,” Marsh said, “but hopefully soon.”
If he does throw one down on someone this year, Ciambotti told him he’d take the whole team out for wings. But even without a dunk on his highlight reel, Marsh has impressed with his ability to penetrate and finish acrobatic reverse layups.
In a game against Neumann Regional, he took two steps at the elbow, swooped across the lane and spun a left-handed reverse layup off the bottom of the backboard. There wasn’t much of a reaction from the Wolves in the moment. Marsh simply sprinted back on defense as the game continued. But after watching the play on film, Ciambotti was stunned by what he saw. And he wasn’t the only one — he noticed a few fans in the student section put their hands on their heads after the layup.
Now, Marsh is adding a midrange game to go with his 3-point shot and driving ability. Once he becomes dangerous pulling up for 12-15 foot jump shots, he’ll be able to set up a hesitation dribble to blow by opponents even more.
“Then you’re just guessing when you’re guarding him,” Ciambotti said.
The 5-foot-10 junior can do more than just create for himself. He’s always looked to find an open teammate.
And he’s thought about how to put his teammates in position to score — like looking away as he makes a pass.
“I learned pretty quickly that you can throw someone open with a pass,” Marsh said. “So if they’re not open and you throw a pass in the right spot, then they’ll be open and hopefully have an open shot. I think it’s partly creativity.”
But he’s also capable of carrying the Wolves for stretches. He’s changed games by scoring eight straight points for his team.
“If our offense is lacking at the time, we can just give the ball to R.J.,” Thornburg said.
With his versatile skill set, from getting into the lane to letting 3-pointers fly, he finds a way to get the job done more often than not.
“When he’s feeling good about his game,” Ciambotti said, “he’s really tough to guard and tough to stop.”
This story was originally published January 27, 2018 at 8:18 PM with the headline "SJCA guard R.J. Marsh keeps opponents guessing with versatile skill set."