Don’t go awarding any TCIS regular season championship to the Norfolk Collegiate boys basketball team just yet.
After the Oaks suffered a 67-63 loss to Hampton Roads Academy on their home floor Thursday night, there just might be a new team to beat.
Unless you talk to Navigators coach Max Gillespie.
“This is a big win for us, it’s one of the games that was circled on the schedule,” he said after his team improved to 15-3 and 3-0 in the TCIS. “Norfolk Collegiate was definitely the front-runner and I’m not shocked we beat them, but I think there’s three or four teams that could win it.”
Even the HRA players refused to declare themselves the top dog.
“Us the team to beat? I don’t know …,” said sophomore forward Jeff Wallace, who helped neutralize Norfolk Collegiate’s leading scorer, 6-7 Harvard-bound forward Keith Wright. “This gives us a boost of confidence. But we’re still going to have to go hard every night.”
The Navigators went plenty hard Thursday. They never trailed after taking a 7-6 lead early in the first period, were up by 35-24 at the half, got out front by 15 points at the 5:10 mark of the third quarter and still had a nine-point lead with a minute to play before Norfolk Collegiate (11-7, 3-1) hit three 3-pointers to make it respectable.
Oaks coach Jim Markey game the visitors their due.
“The story of the game was how well they played, not what we didn’t do,” he said. “They’re depth really hurt us. We know they have three or four good players, but their fourth through ninth players really played well. They just kept coming at us.”
For anyone wanting to delve into extenuating circumstances, they were certainly there for Norfolk Collegiate. Due to a scheduling quirk, it was the first game in nine days for the Oaks, ranked No. 3 in The Pilot's South Hampton Roads rankings. They were also playing without starting point guard James Hitch, who sprained an ankle in their last game. The two factors contributed to an uneven offensive effort.
When the Navigators opened the game with a man-to-man and doubled up on Wright, Norfolk Collegiate was never able to make the adjustment. Wright had to get his 17 points by hustling after offensive rebounds and the Oaks couldn’t hit a three until the final minute.
“We had trouble getting the ball to Keith and we weren’t able to hit the outside shots with the openings created by him being doubled,” said Markey.
Dante Hill, who filled in for Hitch by moving over from his shooting guard position, scored a game-high 29 points, but seemed to be trying to carry the team on his back and overall cohesiveness suffered.
Hampton Roads looked much smoother. Calvin Kibwe slashed to 23 points, Lucas Pervan added 15 and Wallace 10. The Navigators, who had to find a way around Wright (10 rebounds, six blocks) most of the night, often did it by long distance, hitting six 3-pointers.
Since the TCIS schedule calls for just one game against each conference opponent, the Oaks will have to wait for the conference tournament to get another shot at HRA.
That’s OK with Markey.
“I still feel optimistic about this team, especially if we get healthy again,” he said. “As I told the kids, they don’t hang championship banners for regular-season titles.”
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
