City takeaways: Lanphier, SHG boys win but leave room for improvement
When is a win not a reason for celebration? Sacred Heart-Griffin boys basketball coach Tim Allen says when a team plays such as his did in the first half of a 60-38 win over Springfield High Thursday.
Lanphier also pulled out a foul- and turnover-marred victory in the boys opener of the City Tournament at the BOS Center with a 52-43 win over crosstown rival Southeast.
While Lanphier and SHG sit two wins away from a coveted City Tournament championship, Allen and his Lanphier counterpart Blake Turner know their teams must shake off those opening performances, be happy to get wins without playing their best and do better as the tournament reaches the final two days.
“They haven’t been pretty for us lately,” Turner said. “At this point, we just want to get (wins) and build on them. LT does a great job. Any time we can beat Southeast, our arch-rival, it’s always a good thing for our program.”
Ugly opener
If there is a limit on the times a referee can use a whistle, the three-man crew of Jeff Nelson, Scott Hood and Darrin Sortor better have backups the next time they don the black-and-white striped shirts.
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Second-seeded Lanphier won despite committing 23 personal fouls and 21 turnovers while play was stopped countless times due to a ball going out of bounds or players tying up a loose ball. No. 3 Southeast (10-13 overall, 5-7 Central State Eight Conference, 0-1 City) had 24 turnovers and committed 23 fouls. The teams combined to go 1 of 18 from behind the 3-point line. The teams had 12 assists for its 30 field goals and there were 51 free throws shot.
“As usual in a Lanphier-Southeast game, they were calling it close to kind of keep the messiness out of the game,” Turner said. “You have to adjust. (In the second half), I wanted to keep (Southeast) more at an arm’s length on defense to contest their shots as opposed to getting all the way up in them and riding them and I thought we did a better job at that.”
The game film will not be used to teach future generations the beauty of the game.
But Lanphier’s JaiQuan Holman scored 14 points to lead the Lions (14-8, 7-5, 1-0 City) while Austin Robinson pulled down 13 rebounds and added 11 points. Shaun Hatchett also reached double figures for Lanphier with 11 points.
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Robinson said it felt like Southeast’s leading scorer, Seth Doss, took close to 36 free throws. In fact, Doss was 11-for-14 at the line and finished with a game-high 19 points. Doss also had nine rebounds — six offensive.
“It slows down the game and we can’t get that rhythm going (with all the stoppages) but I’m happy with everyone and how they played,” Robinson said. “A lot of times we go down, we go down a lot so for us being able to push back and going from losing the second quarter to winning the third and fourth quarter was really good.”
LT disappointed
After Southeast got down 14-5 at the end of the first quarter, the Spartans got 11 points from Doss to close the gap to 28-23 by halftime. When Lebron Kittrell scored a layup 65 seconds into the third quarter, the Spartans were within 28-25.
But it didn’t last and twice in the third, Lanphier regained nine-point leads.
“No sooner than you see that, look how much quicker it went back up to nine and 10 points,” Southeast coach Lawrence Thomas said. “We got no consistency … been like that the whole year but we just keep battling.”
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It was the fourth loss in a row for the Spartans with Class 3A defending state champion Sacred Heart-Griffin still to come on Friday.
“Whether you were a coach or a fan, it was pretty evident that they were the more aggressive team, all four quarters,” Thomas said. “I’ve been expecting a change since Nov. 9 when we started practicing but here it is Jan. (26) and I’m still (waiting). I’m expecting a change; hoping for a change.”
Brutal start in SHG win
For a team averaging more than 65 points per game, it was stunning to see Sacred Heart-Griffin with just three points at the end of the first quarter. And yet somehow, the top-seeded Cyclones (20-2, 12-0, 1-0 City) led by a point.
SHG made 14 of 22 field goals in the second half to shake off a lackluster beginning to beat Springfield High 60-38.
“It ain’t (the lack of scoring), it’s the style of basketball that’s frustrating,” Allen said. “Our play was frustrating.”
SHG outscored SHS 39-20 in the middle quarters.
“We’re senior-laden; we need to play like that the whole game,” Allen added.
Jake Hamilton led SHG with 22 points while Zack Hawkinson finished with 16.
Point guard Carlos Day led Springfield High with 14 points. But the Senators (8-16, 3-10, 0-1) struggled shooting: 5 of 24 (20.8%) in the first half and was 14-for-43 (32.6%) overall.
But SHS coach Joby Crum might’ve been the most positive about his team’s performance of any of the four coaches.
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“We did basically everything we needed to do tonight,” Crum said. “We had the pace of the game exactly where we needed to. There were just two big things: we needed to turn the ball over a little bit less … and we needed to shoot a little bit better.”
Contact Ryan Mahan: 788-1546, ryan.mahan@sj-r.com, Twitter.com/RyanMahanSJR.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: A win's a win, but Lanphier, SHG look to get better at City
