Blue Devil boys break out of funk

Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2008

Blue Devil boys break out of funk

Boys basketball: Springbrook 54, Blair 32

by Dan Greenberg | Staff Writer

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Coaches use two words for these types of games, the ones where they know they ‘‘should” win but don’t want their players to know it: Trap game. The Springbrook boys basketball team had all the reasons in the world to be complacent, and all the reasons to get caught in the trap. It had won six games in a row, were facing a Blair team that had lost its last 10, and with the 5:15 p.m. start, it felt like someone hit the mute button in its gymnasium.

Luckily for them, the Blue Devils didn’t get trapped. Not completely, at least.

Overcoming a sluggish first half, they did what they had to do, pulling away for a 54-32 victory on Friday night to tie Magruder for a county-best 12 wins. It wasn’t pretty — they produced a paltry seven first-quarter points and had only 20 at halftime. But they got the job done on the defensive end, holding the Blazers to 32 points, the fewest they have allowed this season.

‘‘I don’t think we came out with that much motivation,” said Blue Devil senior guard C.J. Garner, who poured in a game-high 21 points. ‘‘But we can’t get away with that from now on. We can’t just turn it on all the time. Next week, we’ve got Sherwood and Blake. Coach [Tom Crowell] told us just now that we’re not going to have anymore games like this.”

In actuality, whether the Blue Devils (12-1 overall, 5-1 4A East Division) were motivated or not, the Blazers played fantastic defense in the first half. The problem was, they couldn’t score themselves. They allowed just seven points in the first quarter, but scored only four.

While the Blazers have athletic players at every starting position on the floor, they don’t always have offensive creators. They had a lone scoring threat on Friday, forward Izzy Melton (team-high 12 points), who had a first-half stretch where he scored 10 points in a row, giving Blair (2-11, 0-6) a 14-11 lead with just over four minutes left in the second quarter. However, the team didn’t score again for the rest of the half. And when Garner scored nine straight points to close the half, the Blazers found themselves trailing by six (20-14), despite playing 16 tenacious minutes.

Though the Blue Devils can’t turn it on all the time, they did seemingly do so in the final 16 minutes. After Garner did almost all the legwork in the opening half (15 points, while the rest of the team scored just five), he got help from his friends in the second. Power forward Jamal Olasewere scored 14 of his 17 points in the final two quarters, while point guard Mounda Williams scored all of his 10 after intermission. Forward Ebou Touray didn’t score much, but several of his 12 rebounds were out-letted to streaking Blue Devils for layups that put the game out of reach.

It was a game they expected to win. And yeah, they didn’t play particularly well. But every great team wins ugly sometimes. After 13 games, Springbrook is looking like a great team.

That doesn’t have to be great to win.

‘‘We didn’t shoot the ball well,” said Springbrook head coach Tom Crowell. ‘‘But we always play good defense. C.J. Garner played the best defense tonight that he’s played all season. Mounda, [point guard] Chris Carter off the bench, we can play defense. We’re in that midyear slump, and it’s starting to catch up to us, but there are going to be games like this. I’m looking down the road, not right here.”