Southfield stymies cold-shooting Colts
BY JAKE LOURIM
STUDENT CORRESPONDENT
SOUTHFIELD — After a second straight loss, frustrated Troy boys basketball coach Gary Fralick was at a loss for words.
Star junior James Young shot 0-for-11 from the floor Tuesday and Troy (2-3) shot 31 percent overall in a 49-43 OAA crossover road loss to Southfield.
“I thought it was a poor effort,” Fralick said. “You can’t have an effort like that and beat a (OAA) Red Division team on their home floor.”
Troy played inconsistently the whole game, but caught up to tie the game at 34 at the end of the third quarter. However, the Colts only scored three points in the first seven minutes of the fourth, going down by nine.
After Southfield canned a pair of 3-pointers in the first quarter to lead by eight, Troy fought back in the last minute with a layup from Nico Hudson and a triple by Joe Leonard. The BlueJays started fast again in the second quarter, but Leonard and sophomore Maceo Baston each scored five straight to tie the game, and Troy battled to tie it at the end of the third.
But the fourth drought was too much to handle.
“We had a nice little run, a couple minutes here and there,” Fralick said, “but we were standing around way too much on offense.”
Southfield’s shut-down of his star player didn’t help, either.
“We decided to go man-to-man, a helping kind of a man-to-man,” Southfield coach Gary Teasley said. “We know that they’re a great 3-point shooting team, they did get their looks, but we didn’t want to play any type of zone and give them open looks.”
In the second half, Southfield pounded the offensive glass, finishing with 12 offensive rebounds and turning them into several second-chance points.
“When we saw that we were able to keep it close, we felt our inside game was a percentage game,” said Teasley, who added that when he looked at his team’s shooting percentages, he knew that “second shots were a strategy.”
Overall, Teasley’s team was too strong and athletic for Troy, which failed to reach 50 points for the second straight time. Baston tallied 18 points and Leonard added 12 points, while senior Jeff Holmes and junior point guard Zak Noor combined for 15 rebounds.
The Colts open their league slate Jan. 17 against Auburn Hills Avondale.
Category: Featured Articles, High School (M-Z), Prep Wraps, Student Columns, Top Stories, Troy, Uncategorized
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