With his team huddled around him, Thomas Jefferson boys' basketball coach Dom DeCicco lowered his index finger to his thumb and held them as close together as possible without touching.

The area between the two fingers, he told them, was how close they were to being a really bad team or a really good team.

The Jaguars had just dropped its first section game of the season, a 61-50 loss at home against Trinity.

Overall they were 3-4 and not looking quite like the team from last season that went 17-6 and won the Section 5-AAA title with an 11-1 section record.

The tough start was not at all what DeCicco was expecting.

For one, this was a talented team returning three starters from a year ago and more importantly, DeCicco got to coach his team earlier than usual. With an upset loss on the football field in the WPIAL Class AAA semifinals, the TJ football team, a perennial powerhouse, was not going to be playing football into December as DeCicco had become accustomed to dealing with in recent years.

"It was weird, it was really weird," DeCicco said of having the football players on his team reporting almost on time.

"I looked at [Bill Cherpak, Thomas Jefferson football coach and athletic director] and told him I wasn't used to having these guys this early. Even though we were together [as a team] earlier [than we were used to], we still had to find an identity with our team and that takes time."

The Jaguars eventually found an identity and it turns out the slight distance between DeCicco's index finger and thumb was how close they were to becoming a really good team.

The Jaguars would go on to win 11 of 12 games to jump out to an overall record of 14-5, 8-1 in the section.

They are battling for the section crown with Trinity (13-3, 9-1). It was a win against Trinity on Jan. 26 that became the turning point of the season for TJ.

Thomas Jefferson had lost to the Hillers by 11, just before Christmas. In that game the Hillers shot 28 free throws while TJ had just two opportunities from the line.

"It was a well refereed game. The difference in free throws was because of our lack of focus defensively," DeCicco said. "We were lazy on defense.

"Since then we have gotten better every game. In the second game against Trinity we were just a better basketball team than the first time. We have improved in everything from shooting the ball, to defense, to rebounding and to running our break."

Indeed, the Jaguars have displayed marked improvement in nearly all facets of the game and they have learned to play without a dominant inside presence such as they had last year with 6-foot-6 Brock DeCicco, one of coach DeCicco's sons who is now a tight end on the University of Pittsburgh football team.

"We don't have someone like Brock who can dominate a game," coach DeCicco said.

"I told them we have to run our sets, stay close to your man on defense, and play more as a team. We have to trust each other and they have bought into that."

As the wins started to pile up, so has the confidence.

A 66-60 win over Class AAAA Canon-McMillan and then a 56-43 win over Greensburg Salem, the Section 3-AAA leader, four nights later could go a long way to improving the Jaguars' seeding for the WPIAL playoffs. Greensburg Salem is one of the top teams in Class AAA and PIAA runner-up from last season. TJ played both of those teams last season and lost both games by an average of 13 points.

There is no Brock DeCicco this year but Thomas Jefferson still has an impressive inside presence at the forward spots with returning starters Jim Giansante at 6-3 and Steven Licht, who is 6-1. Both were top players on the football team. Giansante leads the team in scoring at 17.5 points per game and Licht is second at 16.5.

The other starter who was in the lineup for all of last season is senior point guard Gus Smith (5-11). The shooting guard is 6-foot junior Mike Horan. He was a part-time starter last season and in the Canon-McMillan game with Giansante out of the lineup, Horan poured in 27 points.

Six-foot-three senior T.J. Matrascia is the fifth starter, he plays center. Junior Ryan Crouse and sophomore Ryan Ruffing are the first two players off the bench. All three also played on the football team.

The basketball team has not advanced beyond the first round of the WPIAL playoffs since 2006 and this group is hoping it can have an unexpected deep run through the WPIAL playoffs.

About the only thing to slow the Jaguars in recent days has been the weather. TJ still needs to squeeze in three section games by next Monday, the end of the regular season.

Mike White's "High School Sports Edition" videos are featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.