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ST. PARIS — One day almost five years ago, Brook Cupps arrived at Graham High School at his normal time — early.

Cupps opened the gym, as he always does, for his boys basketball players to shoot around before class. Two of the players that day were new students. Aaron and Austin Jones had recently moved to the St. Paris area from Chicago.

Then Cupps went back to his office to work on some things. When he returned later to check on the players, he got a first impression of the Jones brothers that sticks with him to this day.

"They were doing full-court dribbling drills," Cupps said. "So from that point on, I knew they were serious about basketball."

Vocal leader

Aaron Jones graduated from Graham in 2006 and is now a sophomore for the United States Coast Guard Academy basketball team. He has played in five games this season for a Coast Guard team that is in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Division III tournament.

The younger Jones, Austin, is two rounds ahead of his brother, albeit in a different state, a different tournament, a different level.

The Graham junior will go into a Division II state semifinal at

10:45 a.m. Thursday, March 13, as the team's second-leading scorer and rebounder (11.1 points and 4.8 rebounds per game). He will need to produce in both areas when Graham plays Toledo Libbey at the Schottenstein Center.

Perhaps, more importantly, Jones is the Falcons' vocal leader and brings the intensity like no other player, Cupps said. As the final seconds ticked off the clock Sunday, in Graham's 69-61 regional final victory over Alter, Jones held the ball. He let out several primal screams at half court before going to bump chests with a teammate.

"He gets on other players when they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing," Cupps said. "He's that guy for us, and whether he's playing well or not playing well, he's still got to do that."

Chicago native

Austin Jones, 17, was born on the west side of Chicago during the Michael Jordan years. If Jones had stayed in Chicago, he said he would have attended Whitney Young High School. This season he would have been a teammate of Jordan's youngest son, Marcus, a junior like Jones.

But when Jones was 12 and in seventh grade, he moved to the Graham area with his mom Kimberly, brother Aaron and sister Alex, now an eighth grader.

"I think she just wanted to get back home with the family," Austin said. "Some stuff happened in Chicago that she wanted to get away from."

Kimberly Jones attended Graham schools from kindergarten through 10th grade, her dad Richard Van Horn said.

"My mom was here when the (boys basketball) team won district in '71-72," Austin said. "She said it's crazy that I came back and now we're doing it."

Van Horn, 72, was principal of Graham Junior High from 1965-72. After that, he moved his family to Sparta, Ohio, to take the superintendent job at Highland High School.

When asked where his grandson got his athletic ability, Van Horn described himself as an average athlete. But Van Horn's brother, John Van Horn, averaged 23 points per game in 1940-41 for Rosewood High, just north of St. Paris. John Van Horn was killed in action in France near the end of World War II on March 15, 1945.

Richard and his wife Mary Ann now live next to the Joneses on Nettle Creek Road near St. Paris.

As an area native, Richard knows what this Graham team's accomplishments mean to the area.

"It's been kind of amazing to see this group of kids," Van Horn said. "They don't have a great big man. They have a couple 6-3, in that general area, but they play the big boys, and they're able to keep their composure. They're unselfish. They hit the open man about as well as any team I have seen."

And as for Austin, "he's got the will to win," Van Horn said.

Personable guy

Jones was skeptical about Ohio basketball when he moved here.

He wasn't thrown off by moving to the country because he had visited his family here many times before, and he didn't have much trouble fitting in because, "I guess I'm kind of a personable guy," Jones said.

But he didn't know what to think when he asked Cupps who the best player in his class was.

Cupps told him it was — who else? — Josh Schuler, this year's leading scorer.

"When I met (Schuler), I was like, '(Cupps) said he was the best player, so he must be, but it was hard to picture," Jones said. "Then we played together for a little while, and he could play. We've been friends ever since. ... He's my boy."

Jones and Schuler — nicknamed Scooby and Shaggy — are quite a one-two punch for Graham, and the juniors have another year together.

"When Austin came in, he was searching for someone who valued and appreciated basketball as much as he did," Cupps said. "Josh was the one. It's just the luck of the draw that Austin ended up in Josh's class and playing with him in seventh grade. I just think those two, basketball being their common thread, it really set their friendship up."

Jones said he never imagined years ago that a season such as this one could happen. He left a great basketball city like Chicago to find a basketball dream in rural Ohio.

"It turned out pretty well," he said.

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0351

djablonski@coxohio.com