After a 3-3 start to the 2025-26 season, the Putnam County boys basketball team is on the rise.
Heading into the holiday break, the War Eagles (7-3) have won four consecutive games since Dec. 9.
“We’ve been playing well; we’ve been finding ourselves,” Putnam head coach Patrick Marshall said. “We’re coming along. We won last night against Jones (County), so that’s four straight after dropping the early games.”
The War Eagles defeated Morgan County and Hancock Central to start the regular season, then lost two one-point decisions to Baldwin and Houston County, both ranked teams in their respective classifications. They then defeated Northeast of Macon and lost to Baldwin a second time before rattling off the four straight wins.
Putnam’s most recent victories came against Jasper County, Hancock Central, Morgan County, and Jones County. Three of the four wins were by more than 20 points, with the closest being a six-point victory over Morgan County. During this four-game stretch, the War Eagles have won by an average margin of 19.75 points.
Marshall said his team has really improved in certain areas over the last few weeks.
“It was really on the defensive end,” Marshall acknowledged. “We were giving up a lot of points that we don’t usually give up (at the start of the season), so we kind of found our identity on the defensive end and started sharing the ball more on offense. Once we started doing things like that, it left a positive outcome for us.”
Marshall and his staff have been harping on the importance of playing good defense. He said that the players are taking the coaching they’re receiving, learning, and responding positively.
“I think we haven’t really reached our potential, which is good because I don’t want to [get there too] early. I want to make sure they know that we’re only 10 games in,” Putnam County’s head coach said. “But there’s one thing I love about this group, which is that they take the coaching. They take any type of critique we give them and try to put it into action.
"So, like, we’ve been harping on the defensive end. We’ve had some halves where we’ve only given up 14 points or fewer, and single-digit quarters, because they take the coaching and come out and play. So, the guys are listening and will do what you ask. I really like that about them.”
Putnam had two different leading scorers — Jmari Greene and Tamaud Woodson — in that four-game stretch. They are the team’s leading scorers through seven games, with each senior guard averaging over double digits.
Marshall sees that as a positive because each night, a different player could go off.
“The strength of our team is depth. We’ve got a very talented team,” he said. “We’re unselfish, and everybody knows that any given night it could be somebody else.
“Now, Jmari is going to be Jmari. He’s going to score the buckets. But there’s also Jeremy (Banks), Jaylen Nelson, Jmari, Tamaud, and even Zay Hargrove. All those guys come in and play well for us, so you can’t just scout for one guy because there’s a possibility that somebody else will go off. So, that’s another great positive for our team.”
Putnam will resume play Dec. 29 in a holiday tournament at St. Simons against Groves. The War Eagles will then play Calvary Day and Sumter County the following two days before facing Jones County Jan. 3 in Gray.