Bishop Chatard hires Tim Adams to revive boys basketball program

Bishop Chatard went after more than a coach on Thursday. It hired Tim Adams to change the temperature of a boys basketball program that has spent too long outside the top tier in Indianapolis, and it did so with the kind of urgency that says the Trojans are tired of waiting.

Adams arrived with the cleanest argument a school can make in a coaching search: results. He went 115-66 in eight seasons at Park Tudor School, won two sectional championships and added a regional title, enough of a resume to make him one of the more proven builders on the private-school circuit. His exit from Park Tudor earlier in May opened the door, and Bishop Chatard moved fast to close it.

The timing told the story. Bishop Chatard informed Matt Boling on April 9 that he would not return after two seasons, a stretch in which he went 13-33. The Trojans finished 8-16 in 2025-26, their third straight losing season, and their season ended with a 66-62 sectional semifinal loss to Crispus Attucks on March 6. For a program that has not won a sectional since the 2003-04 season, that was the kind of finish that makes a coaching change feel less like a decision and more like a deadline.

That is where Adams fits. Bishop Chatard is not just looking for someone to draw up late-game sets. It is looking for a voice that matches the school’s broader identity, one centered on faith formation and academic excellence, and Adams said the vision lined up with the administration’s expectation that players compete in the classroom, in the community and on the court. That matters at a school with 50 clubs and athletic teams and a Board of Regents that helps guide long-term planning every three years. Adams, a Cathedral graduate who grew up around St. Pius X CYO basketball, brings local roots to a job that still depends on local trust.

The roster gives the hire a chance to matter quickly. Senior guard Ari Sahm and 6-9 center Zach McCormack were singled out as important returning pieces, and Adams inherits enough veterans and younger players to believe the reset does not have to take long. That is the real question now: whether Bishop Chatard’s move changes the Indianapolis-area pecking order, or whether it merely restores a program that should have been contending all along.

The history says the ceiling is higher than the recent results. Bishop Chatard’s archived tournament record includes sectional titles in 1981, 1988, 2002, 2003 and 2004, plus regional crowns in 2003 and 2004. Adams was hired to make that past feel current again, and in this neighborhood, that is the difference between a safe hire and a consequential one.