High-scoring Madison basketball star Javonnie Moore living up to lofty family standards
Javonnie Moore’s eyes light up when he talks about basketball.
A 6-1 senior guard for the Madison Trojans, Moore is among St. Louis area leaders in scoring this season, averaging 21.9 points for a team which is currently 14-8 and riding a six-game winning streak.
Moore, who carries a 3.4 grade-point average in the classroom, also is part of Trojans basketball royalty.
His older brother, Marquis Borney was a first team all-state selection when he led Madison to a second place finish at the 2013 Class 1A State Tournament. And his uncle, current Trojans head coach Maurice Baker, is one of the great players in metro-east history. An all-state selection when he led Madison to the quarterfinals of the 1997 Class 1A state finals, Baker went on to star at Oklahoma State University before playing 15 years of professional basketball both in the United States and overseas.
Like his brother and uncle, Moore loves the game and has the ability to take his talents to the next level.
“I never saw my uncle play. He was overseas playing,” Moore said. “But I know about him and I have read about him. I know he was a great player. I want to be better than him.
‘I know its going to take a lot of hard work, but I’m willing to do that.”
The youngest of five children in his family, Moore spent last summer working on his strength and endurance. His daily basketball workouts consisted of running, lifting weights, open gyms and then working on his jump shot into the late night hours.
“And I did that five days a week,” Moore said. “Marquis pushes me hard too. Now, even though its cold out, he’s still wants me to go out and play. I played a lot this summer with older, bigger players. That really helped my confidence. Now, I think every shot is going in. I didn’t have that before.”
Baker has seen the the growth of his nephew and has been pleased with both his maturity as a basketball player and as a student-athlete.
“Javonnie saw Marquis do the daily grind. Now he’s doing it (because) he wants to be better than Marquis,” Baker said. “There are five boys in the family and that’s good because every one wants to be better than the other one.
“Being the youngest one, Javonnie got beat up the most. It still happens to this day.”
In addition to ranking among the top 10 in the St. Louis area in scoring, Moore is averaging six rebounds, three assists and four steals per game. He is shooting more than 42% from beyond the 3-point line and making 54% of his shots overall.
Baker, who will be inducted into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame later this spring, said the biggest improvement he sees in his Moore is with his confidence.
“Javonnie’s confidence is at an all-time high right now. He’s making his shots and just playing at another level from what he did last year,” Baker said. “His maturity level also took off this summer. We had a lot of sophomores come in this summer and he (Moore) came in everyday and made sure the young kids were working hard and doing what they were supposed to doing.”
Moore knows he has work to be done in order to play at the NCAA Division I level. That includes putting some weight and muscle on his 145-pound frame.
But for now, Moore’s main goal is to help the Trojans reach the Class 1A state tournament. Just like his uncle and brother.
“We’re played well right now. The biggest difference is that everybody is playing together and we all know and are playing our roles,” Moore said. “We’re just going game by game, but we would like to be playing in Peoria in March.”
