Wildkit Girls Ready To Push Reset Button

Evanston’s girls basketball team hit bottom last season.

Now every player on the roster --- and that includes the coaching staff --- is poised to push the reset button.

Call it Evanston 2.0.

Coach Brittanny Johnson’s squad returns almost everyone from a 12-20 season that included nine slaughter rule losses by 20 points or more. The Wildkits endured a “perfect storm” that combined injuries, inexperience and one of the state’s toughest schedules and never could climb out of that hole.

Now that’s in the past, and the Wildkits will start over with a trip to Trinity for Wednesday’s season opener to begin the 2025-26 season. They’ll also visit Bolingbrook Saturday as part of a challenging stretch of the schedule that will feature 8 of their first 10 scheduled contests on the road.

“When you look at our roster last year, we were very, very young. We were very, very inexperienced, and we were very, very small,” pointed out Johnson, who is entering her 10th year at the helm at ETHS. “We also had some key injuries and we’ve been very unlucky with the injuries over the last two or three years. Losing Payton (guard Payton King, who spent more time in concussion protocol than on the court) really devastated our entire season.

“But now there’s no reason NOT to look forward to making a fresh start. We’ve all done the work in the off-season that will put us in a better position, and I’ve already seen a change in their mindset. Having gone through that level of adversity showed me a lot about them and their character. They’ve been through a lot of ups and downs, and they’ve endured a lot, but this is the most connected group I’ve ever had here.

“It wasn’t fun for anyone last year. But the commitment part of things has changed and right now I’m seeing the best versions of all of them. I know the seniors (Sandra Deeney, Havana Van Wyk, Kamilla Johnson, Casey McDermott) want to leave this program better than they found it. They’re all hungry, and they’re all tired of losing.”

The return of King, the continued development of 6-foot-1 post player Charity Bryant, and the emergence of point guard Ella Martin are all pluses going forward for the Wildkits.

King deserves a redshirt year --- “last season was really a wash for her” according to Johnson --- after suffering three different concussions during her sophomore season. The 5-10 junior had shown signs of becoming the go-to scorer the program lacked but could never build any chemistry with her young teammates because she wasn’t allowed to suit up.

Now she’s back eager to make up for lost time.

“I’m excited about what I’ve seen from all of them so far, but I’m most excited for Payton,” said Johnson. “She was in the gym all summer and all fall and she’s already gotten her first Division I (college recruiting) offer because people see in her what we saw before last year. She has the ability to affect the game on both sides of the floor, on offense and on defense, and she’s really worked hard. Losing her was really a huge detriment to our season.

“She’s a playmaker, and so is Charity, and they both have the ability to make the others around them better.”

Bryant averaged 12.1 points per game as a freshman and earned all-Central Suburban League South division honors even though the Wildkits only won three conference games. The ETHS head coach predicted last year that Bryant would become one of the best players in program history and hasn’t seen any reason to change that opinion since then.

“When I sat down with her for our preseason meeting, she told me I was going to see Charity 2.0 this year,” Johnson said. “She’s looking forward to being even more aggressive, and not taking any plays off. She can affect games in more than one way --- I don’t really consider her a post player --- because there are a lot of dimensions to her game. I really have expectations that she’s going to take off this year.

“Charity has really, really worked on her outside (shooting) game and what we want to do this year is showcase what will make her successful and make us successful as a team, too.”

Martin, another sophomore, grew into the point guard position and it was her steady play that helped the Wildkits finish out the season with five wins in their last eight games. She rarely attempted any shots, however, and Johnson has urged her to open up her offensive game after the Kits averaged only 43.1 points per game a year ago as a team.

“So far Ella looks much more aggressive on offense, which I love. She has to make people guard her this year,” said the coach. “She’s really worked hard to make herself a strong lead guard. We need players who are going to knock down shots.”

Help will also come from juniors Jaylah McClure-Calvin and Averi Storey, and sophomores Stella Gettelfinger and Elea Thompson. The lack of numbers is still an issue for the entire program and Johnson would prefer to keep a group of five promising freshmen together on the junior varsity level for a full season, unless they force her hand and emerge as players who can provide quality minutes on the varsity level.

Evanston’s offensive woes weren’t the only source of frustration for Johnson in 2024-25. Those blowout losses underlined issues at the other end of the floor, too.

“As bad as we were offensively, I thought we were just as bad defensively,” she acknowledged. “We had so many running clock games and we need to take more pride in stopping other teams. This year our goal is to give it everything we have no matter what the score is.”

For the first time in Johnson’s tenure, and maybe dating back to the start of the program in the 1970s, the Wildkits won’t play in a Thanksgiving or Christmas tournament. Instead they’ll participate in shootout events at Whitney Young (November 29th against Hillcrest), at Fremd (December 6th against Libertyville), and at Kenwood (Dec. 13 versus St. Ignatius).

Evanston will also host the annual “Grow The Game” event that celebrates female head coaches in the sport at the high school level. The four-game slate on January 3rd climaxes with the Wildkits meeting Geneva.