Community News

East Eagles soar as Coach Jones and Caiden Brewer lead the way

East Henderson High School men’s basketball coach Marquintas Jones tells his players what to expect when they start the conference tournament play.

By Bill Moss, Published: February 18, 2025

For most of the school’s history, the men’s basketball team at East Henderson High School has been, frankly, a doormat.

That began to change six years ago when East principal Carl Taylor looked at the program and decided it was time for a change. As it turned out, he had on his faculty at the time a young business teacher who had played college ball, played in professionally in Europe and had been a head coach in college, at Limestone, in Gaffney, South Carolina.

The new head coach went to work, and what he did worked. Bigtime.

So how does a high school varsity squad that won 16 games and lost 58 in the three seasons before 2019 turn around to become two-time conference champions and, this year, an undefeated juggernaut charging toward the state playoffs?

The answer to the question is a coach they call Q. With a bit of help from a kid named Caiden Brewer, the 6-1 guard who is the reigning Mountain 7 Conference player of the year, odds-on favorite to repeat, Henderson County’s all-time leading scorer and, oh, by the way, a star in the classroom with straight A’s  and a top ranking in the class of ’25.

The Eagles’ flight to astonishing heights is not the story of last year or this year. The change began when Marquintas Jones slung the coach’s whistle around his neck, marched into the gym and directed a straight-on gaze into the faces of the players who would don the Eagle green and white.

“My main objective was to change the mindset of the kids,” Jones told me during my visit in his office before practice on Monday. “When I first got here, they were like, ‘We can’t win. We’re never going to win, we’re gonna get blown out.’

“So in the off-season, when I took over, in the first couple months, I built a relationship with the guys — to make sure that they knew that I cared about them as people first. That was my main objective, to have a great relationship with the kids and change their mindset — that they can win and they will win.

“And then obviously I focused on some skill sets. They just didn’t have the proper skill teaching: dribble, pass, shoot.”

Pass before shoot, I suggest.

Yes, coach says.

Then the important word: “Getting them to compete defensively and offensively, too. That’s our favorite word: Compete,” he says.

Fired up now, he reaches into a drawer and pulls out a green rubber wrist band and offers it to me. EAST, it says on one side. COMPETE, on the other.

“Our guys wear these every day. It’s like a baptism for our program,” he says. “You’re promising me, no matter what the score is, no matter what goes on in the game, we’re going to compete. We have it everywhere, and I tell you, our guys have ran with it. We can lose to people but we don’t want to lose by not having the effort. That’s been a big part of why we have been successful here the last three or four years.”

‘The lightbulb went on’

The Marquintas Jones era did not rocket-launch off to an instant turnaround from mediocrity to excellence. But some things fundamentally did begin to change from the start, in the early fall of 2019.

The Eagles’ record of 5-18 that season did not reflect the positive intangibles. They beat West for the first time in 10 years. They lost many games, yes, but when they lost they competed.

“We lost so many close games due to the fact that we just didn’t know how to win those games, because they had never been in them,” Jones says. “But they were like, ‘Oh my God, man, we got beat by them by 40 last year. Now we’re losing down the stretch by two or three points.’ It helped us believe in what I was teaching. … They started believing that we could do this. The light bulb went on in our program and it changed our culture.”

The change in culture didn’t come in games. Instilling character, poise, discipline and hard work came with practice — at practice.

“I put ’em in adverse situations where things don’t go well, and I get to see how they react to those things,” Jones says. “It was hard for me to just come in and have them believe in me, not knowing who I am. So every day in practice, I tried to create something where it made them react the wrong way, so I can say, ‘OK, this is not how we react in those situations’ — whether it was me just picking on somebody just to see how they react or whether it means me being the ref in practice and not calling a foul when you know you’ve been fouled.”

He eradicated “a quitting mentality” or a harmful response “so when it comes to those Tuesdays and Fridays, you would know how to react to every situation that the game presents,” he says. “We try to just have every moment be a teachable moment during practice because we have so many more practices than games.”

‘He wants to create his own legacy’

By the summer of 2021, Coach Jones knew he had an opportunity but also recognized a threat.

Everyone knew the kid from Flat Rock Middle School named Caiden Brewer was special. What everyone didn’t know was whether Hendersonville High School, which had by far the better record of hoops prowess, would recruit Caiden away.

The son of JD and Becky Brewer, Caiden has two younger brothers: Jaylin, who is a freshman on the varsity squad, and Major, who is 8. A high school basketball star in Georgia, JD works at the Elkamet plant in East Flat Rock. Becky teaches special-ed at Upward Elementary School.

Jones recalls his pitch: “I brought his dad and him over after the (middle school) season, just to see who I am and how I do things and just explain to him how much better he was going to get if he came to East.”

Caiden remembers that day, too.

“He was training someone in here, so I got to see him do some of the workouts,” Caiden tells me during a short break from practice. “I talked to him, with my dad. I thought he was a cool dude.”

Although Jones recognized that the Bearcat reputation could have carried influence, he felt confident the budding star would stay in his home district.

“Caiden’s a real different kid,” the coach says. “He wants to create his own legacy, and boy, he’s done it here.”

And how.

In Caiden’s freshman year, 2021-22, the Eagles finished with a 13-13 record. The next year, they again finished with a .500 record but surged down the stretch after a key player returned to the lineup from injury. They won the conference tournament title as the fourth seed, knocking off West, the No. 1 seed, in the semifinals and North in the championship game.

Last year, East claimed the regular season title, won its second conference championship, made it to the third round of the state playoffs and finished 24-6. Caiden Brewer was the Player of the Year in the Mountain 7 Conference, District 12 and Western North Carolina. Jones also ran the table, honored as the conference, district and Western North Carolina Coach of the Year. After averaging 24 points a game last year, Caiden is putting up 28 a night this season. The 6-1 senior and his coach are getting calls from Division II recruiters.

When I ask about Caiden’s classroom work, the coach lights up as bright as when he’s talking about the player’s court vision or defensive footwork.

“I’m gonna sing his praises,” he says. “He’s top 5 in his class, he’s 28 on his ACT, over 4.0 GPA — just all these accolades academically to go along with his athletic ability The faculty is just in awe at how good of a student he is — he’s not just good at basketball. It’s crazy. … He’s a perfect, perfect coach’s kid. He’s a coach’s dream.”

‘We have each other’s back’

The Eagles were scheduled to play Pisgah High School in the semifinals of the Mountain 7 tournament Tuesday night. The winner of that game plays the winner of the Franklin-North Henderson game for the championship. After that the Eagles fly onto the state playoffs, where they’re expected to secure a high seed and the reward of home games.

Remember COMPETE? There’s one other word. If compete adorns their wrists, FAMILY is emblazoned across his players’ chests. That’s another insignia Marquintas Jones has etched on to his squad.

“Do family fuss, get mad with each other and fight? Yes, we do,” he says. “But at the end of the day, our family always has each other’s back. No matter what we do, we always come back together and have each other’s back on the court and off the court. That’s who I am. I really, really care about our guys.”

When he leaves his blood family — wife Keisha and girls ages 11, 9 and 3 — Jones shifts his focus to his guys during the hour-and-15-minute commute from Union, South Carolina, to East Flat Rock. Coach is good with that.

“I spend more time with these guys —my team —than I do with my own family,” he says.

* * * * *

East Henderson defeated Pisgah Tuesday 102-58 to advance to the finals on Thursday night of the Mountain 7 Conference Tournament. After the conference tournament, seeds for the North Carolina high school basketball playoffs will be announced.