D.J. Bowles is a name that should be widely known soon around the basketball landscape in the Chattanooga area. The teams Notre Dame have played are already well aware of him.
Bowles is a 5-foot-11 freshman guard who’s averaging 24.5 points, 3.8 rebounds and three assists per game for a Fighting Irish team off to a 10-6 start.
His last name is well-recognized already. Legendary Howard boys’ basketball coach Henry Bowles is his great uncle. However, it was his grandmother on his mother’s side, the late Jackie Baker, who introduced D.J. to basketball around the time he started school.
Bowles first played organized basketball in a YMCA league. He and classmate and fellow guard Stedmon Ford, who’s averaging 14.1 points and 2.6 assists per game this season, came to Notre Dame after playing at Hunter Middle.
“Wherever he was going to go, I was going to go,” Bowles said.
The Irish’s freshman class also includes guard Rashawn Avery, is averaging 10.4 points and 3.5 rebounds per game. The class made its first impact at a University of Tennessee at Chattanooga camp. Notre Dame coach Tommy Fox said his team went from losing 30 or 35 games the year before to winning 25 or 30 with this group.
Fox said Bowles had 20 points in one eight-minute period that had a continuous clock.
“One thing I really like about D.J., from the first time I got him out here, is his competitiveness,” Fox said. “It’s nonstop. He has goals and objectives. Whatever’s in the way of that objective, he’s going to try to overcome it. When your best player is doing that, other kids are going to fall in line.”
Bowles is aware his competitve nature must be curtailed at times.
“I hate losing,” Bowles said. “I don’t have fun at all when I lose. I’ve got to learn I’m not going to win every game.”
Bowles was 7-for-7 from 3-point distance in the first half and ended up scoring 38 points when Notre Dame won 83-54 at Bledsoe County on Dec. 8. The Irish played in a Christmas tournament in Corbin, Ky., where Bowles made 7 of 10 from behind the arc and totaled 34 points in a 75-73 victory over Williamsburg, Ky.
“Another really good thing about D.J. is he can really put the basketball in the net,” Fox said. “He may take 20 shots a game. He may take nine or 10 shots a game. Either way he’s going to get his 25. He can shoot from 23 feet. He gets to the foul line. He’s got great body control. He might pull up and take the midrange shot from 10 feet, or he might take it all the way to the rim and score on the big people. He’s a really tough cover.”
Last Saturday he scored 41 and helped the Irish rally past Heritage after they trailed by 16 at halftime.
“I started off slow; then I started getting loose,” Bowles said. “I started hitting my shots and started feeling it. My teammates recognized it, but I still try to tell them to stay aggressive. If they’ve got an open shot, I want them to take it.”
Fox also started at guard when he was a freshman at Notre Dame and went on to become the city’s scoring leader. He concedes that Bowles is better at finishing drives than he was at that age. Fox also said his role as a freshman was more of a distributor, although Bowles already has had a 10-assist game.
“I was the quick-type kid,” Fox said. “He’s smooth and strong. He’s got a real good feel for the game. There are no weaknesses to his offensive game.”
The downside for Notre Dame this season has been its 1-3 record against District 7-AA competition. Bowles believes the Irish can make restitution in the district tournament, and he knows what it will take. It’s something he’s taking personally.
“We’ve got to get better on the defensive end,” Bowles said. “We’re still working on it, though. We’ve got to get where we can get multiple stops every game.”
Fox agrees. At least in the meantime his team’s opponents face a similar problem.
“The thing about us this year is we can score,” Fox said. “If we can figure out how to guard somebody, we could be dangerous.”