Trailing by as many as 17 points in the first half, the Brownwood Lions shaved the Big Spring Steers’ lead down to three points before their comeback attempt ran out of a steam in a 50-41 loss at the TexasBank Holiday Classic Monday at Warren Gym.
“You could tell we were coming off a long break,” said Lions first-year head coach Jorden Young. “It was sloppy in the first half, about 15 turnovers and only 12 points is not very good. We were sluggish but finally woke up in the second half and did some positive things, but the hole was too deep and we couldn’t climb all the way out of it.”
With the Lions (9-8) facing a 25-8 deficit with 1:36 left before halftime, Brownwood was able to close the gap to 26-12 by intermission.
Then, after Big Spring tallied the first bucket of the second half, the Lions reeled off 10 straight points to creep within 28-22 at the 4:40 mark of the third quarter. Durham Brown contributed eight points during the surge, including six on a pair of three-pointers, and Elias Perez also scored.
Brown led the Lions with 21 points, trailed by eight each from Perez and Cannon Calvert, three points from Jordan Gilbert and a free throw from Judson Coalson.
“He’s a basketball junkie, he likes playing basketball, does a lot of good things,” Young said of Brown. “Getting him to understand his role and what he needs from him, he’s starting to figure that out. He’s a good basketball player, just have to get everybody together and make them understands one person can’t do it by themselves, we all have to contribute.”
The Lions continued to whittle away at the Big Spring advantage. Despite trailing 35-25 heading to the fourth period, another driving bucket and free throw from Brown brought the Lions within a long-range bucket, 44-41, with 1:14 remaining. The points capped a 7-0 Brownwood run as Big Spring led 44-34 with just 4:08 remaining.
“It shows the resilience that this crew has they’re going to continue to fight,” Young said of the comeback effort. “I’ve asked them to do that all year, no matter the score keep laying your hardest and keep doing what you’re supposed to be doing and you;re going to give yourselves a chance and I thought they did that. We got some steals and buckets to get it close, but inexperience in situations like that falls on me as well I have to call time outs and make sure we understand what we’re doing. Bu I was proud of the resilience they sowed to come back and fight in that game when they could have easily died.”
The Lions were plagued by 5 of 14 shooting from the free throw line, but Big Spring struggled as well, sinking just 7 of 17 tries.
The Steers were sparked by 16 points from Jacobi Lazano, 12 points from David Franks, and 10 points from J’Mavian Lewis..
Brownwood is back in action at 5:20 p.m. Tuesday at the Coliseum as the Lions wrap up Gold Division Pool A competition against Bryan Rudder.
“Our offensive effort has to be lot better, we have to keep the ball in front of us,” Young said of the goals for the rest of the Classic. “Defensively we want to hold teams to 40, allow single digit quarters throughout a game. We need to continue to defend the ball and limit teams to one shot, and offensively we need to knock off some rust and get back to our form.”
