The Brownwood Lions used a 12-0 run to end the first half and start the second to surge in front of Bryan Rudder, then held on for a 65-60 victory Tuesday night at the Brownwood Coliseum in TexasBank Holiday Classic Boys Gold Division action.
The victory also pushed the Lions (10-8) to double figures in the win column under first-year head coach Jorden Young.
“The guys played with a lot more effort and a sense of urgency to get things done,” said Young, whose team dropped its Classic opener to Big Spring, 50-41, on Monday. “I put a couple of stipulations on them and early on you could tell they weren’t buying into what those stipulations were. But pretty quick you saw a difference in effort, a difference in the way we were playing. Subbing in and out like we did was kind of hard, but the effort was there and we played a lot better offensively and defensively so I was proud of that.”
Throughout the contest, the Lions often substituted five players at a time, which proved to work well against Rudder (0-20).
“The stipulations I told them were no layups for the other team and no turnovers,” Young said. “The whole five was going to suffer or succeed, and I wanted the team to understand we win together and we lose together, we turn the ball over together and we score together. Everything we do is just buying into Brownwood basketball and what it should look like. We figured it out for a while at times, like that 12-0 run, but at times they only lasted 5 or 10 seconds and another five players were coming on.”
All 12 Lions scored in the victory, led by 12 points from Cannon Calvert – who scored all his points in the second half – and 10 apiece from Elias Perez and Durham Brown. Also getting into the scoring act were Carson Noe with six points, Jordan Gilbert with five, Riggs Gray, Aaron Clevenger and Santiago Alvizo with four apiece, Judson Coalson and Tru Pesina each with three, and Hayden Brumbelow and Bennett Windham with two points apiece.
“That’s impressive and shows they’re buying into what we’re trying to do when it comes to being a true team player,” Young said. “We played Big Spring yesterday and Durham had 21 and the rest of the guys really didn’t contribute. Now we play the next game and every single player scores and that’s just about making positive plays and having a positive impact.”
Down 24-19 with 1:24 left in the opening half, the Lions forced turnovers on four straight Rudder possessions, as Brownwood tallied the final seven points of the second quarter to grab a 26-24 advantage by halftime. To start the second half, Cannon converted his first bucket of the contest followed by a traditional three-point play from Perez that increased the lead to 31-24 just 1:24 into the third period.
“We took care of the ball and got shot attempts,” Young said of the run. “We turned them over a few times late there in the second quarter and that obviously helps. But more so we have to take care of the ball. We had 29 turnovers tonight and it’s hard to win games when you turn it over that much. But when we do take care of the ball and get quality shots we have players that can make shots. It just comes down to taking care of the ball and we did that during that 12-point run.”
Leading 54-42 with 4:21 to go, the Lions witnessed Rudder close the gap to 56-53 with 2:10 left thanks to an 11-2 spurt, but Brownwood converted nine of 10 free throws down the stretch to hang on for the victory.
The Lions will conclude Classic competition at noon Wednesday facing Garland Lakeview Centennial at Warren Gym.
“I want to see a little more of what we saw today,” Young said. “Not necessarily five in and five out, but good, hard, solid effort. Whether we’re pressing, whether we’re in a zone, whether we’re in man, the guys have to enjoy being round each other and enjoy competing. Hopefully we can produce another win but we’ll have to be more disciplined because if not we’ll get punched in the mouth pretty quick.”
