In some ways, Vermont Academy coach John Zall considers himself lucky. When he took over the program in 2021, the cupboard was bare. Zall inherited just six players and worked hard to build out a young roster that included future stars Joson Sanon, Chike Ndefo and Andre Mills.
While Mills wound up leaving for Brimmer & May, Sanon and Ndefo stayed to lead a young corps through growing pains against the best competition in New England over the last three years. Their faith was rewarded with glory last season as Vermont Academy won the NEPSAC Class AAA championship.
Now, Zall is restocking the cupboard again after losing most of one of the best teams in school history. Vermont Academy brings back just three players to the 2024-25 squad, and after losing eight players who went on to college basketball programs, there are 10 newcomers. It’s an older group than the one Zall assembled three years ago – this one has five postgraduate players and two fifth-year seniors – but most of them will be playing in NEPSAC for the first time.
“They’re really eager to learn, really eager to get better,” Zall said. “This team is obviously very different than last year’s team, but it’s almost refreshing in a way. They’re so naive, they’re so new, so it’s exciting.”
A fresh look
Zall said he has not coached a game at Vermont Academy without Sanon (Fall River, Mass.) or Ndefo, who are two of the three players in school history to score 1,000 career points. Now, after last season’s breakthrough, they’re both off to college – Sanon to Arizona State, Ndefo to Towson – and it’s going to be very different without them.
“It’s obviously just a huge adjustment,” Zall said. “They know everything. They’ve played in every gym, they’ve played in every environment, they’ve played as the favorites, they’ve played as the severe underdogs, they’ve been in the middle. So, it’s a huge adjustment. Those are the things, you can tell them about it, but you don’t really know until you experience it. You don’t know what it’s like to play at St. Thomas More, you don’t know what it’s like to play at South Kent. …
“I think that’s the biggest adjustment at our level. It’s very much — I tell people all the time, this is college basketball before you’re in college. I think the kids are experiencing that for the first time.”
In addition to Sanon and Ndefo, Vermont also lost Darius Lopes (Maine) and Azmar Abdullah (Boston University) from its championship corps. It will obviously be difficult to match the success and production that has departed, but Zall has high hopes for incoming transfer Jakye Rainey to step in and be impactful.
Rainey is one of five incoming transfers doing a postgraduate year at Vermont, and he may just be the most exciting NEPSAC newcomer. The 6-foot guard broke Christian Laettner’s scoring record at Nichols School in Buffalo, N.Y., and he’s electrifying with the ball in his hands, which he showed during the NEPSAC scholastic showcase in June.
“I’m expecting him to obviously score a lot, but he has to get adjusted to playing here, and how can he impact the game in other ways without scoring,” Zall said. “He’s going to need to do that here. It’s just too hard to just be on the floor and just run around and score. I’m expecting him to have a big role, and I’m expecting him to get a lot better.”
Defensive mentality
While he lost a lot of scoring from a year ago, Zall feels like he’s put together a roster that can really defend.
Zack Scherler, a 6-foot-11 forward, and Emmanuel Cheung, a 6-foot-2 guard, are two of Vermont’s three returners, and are both very physical players. Zall said Sherler has gotten a lot stronger. Cheung recently dislocated his ankle, but he should be ready for the start of the season. He’s a great athlete who brings a high IQ.
Zall has several older newcomers who should make an instant impact. Daye Kaba is a 6-foot-6 wing from New York who can do a little bit of everything. Luke Brown is an athletic 6-foot-9 forward, and 5-foot-10 guard Nolan Raymond is a strong defender who will be a big contributor. Elijah Small, a 6-foot-7 forward from New York, had meniscus surgery in June but will be a big piece when he’s back in November. All four of those players are doing postgraduate years who bring experience and versatility.
Zall also has optimism about junior Isiah Rose – the third returner who was the first forward off the bench last season – who he hopes makes a big jump this year, and Class of 2027 newcomer Kamari Whyte, a 6-foot-5 guard who can really score and has a chance to open some eyes this season.
“I just think we can be really, really good defensively,” Zall said. “That’s always what we try to do. We try to be really good defensively. I think we have a lot of really good defensive personnel. I think we’re big, I think we’re athletic, I think we can be long at the rim and the offense is going to come. But I think we have a lot of guys who can affect the game defensively, which is good.”
What’s Vermont’s ceiling?
While this team is older than the one three years ago, there are similarities as Zall navigates a roster with so many new pieces. Still months away from the season, the biggest challenge between now and then is acclimating them together and figuring out how to make everything fit.
“You just have to get everyone together and figure it out, and you have to find out what people’s strengths are, their weaknesses are, (and) try to get them in a good position to play well,” Zall said.
Vermont Academy certainly doesn’t have the top-end talent they lost, and their 29-8 record from a year ago will be hard to match. But Zall believes he has a team capable of being competitive and if they can position themselves to be in the mix once the playoffs come in March, they’ll be a hard out.
“You want them playing at their best. I think this team has a really high ceiling if we can get them to play their best,” Zall said. “Does that mean winning the last two games in the AAA playoffs by double digits, I don’t know. There’s other great teams. …
“The goal is can we get this team to its ceiling, and if we can, I think we can be pretty good and we can be competitive. We have a lot of different things that we can do well.”
