Spartans turnover woes

Times Reporter   

 

Not exactly the way coach Ken Smith wanted to start the new year – his Strathmore High School Spartans boys basketball squad has gone 0-2, with their most recent loss on Feb. 5, away at Oilfields High School. Turnovers from steals and intercepted passes led to the 75-60 defeat.

“Decision-making skills is what we will be working on,” Smith said. “Proper decision making during situational plays.”

Oilfields was ahead of the Spartans by over 20 points for the majority of the game, but early in the fourth quarter, Strathmore came within 10.

“They just outhustled us and outplayed us,” Smith said. “In the fourth quarter our guys really buckled down and started to execute properly. We calmed down; we were a little panicky with the ball. We limited our turnovers and were more confident – it resulted in us catching up. But then later in the second half of the fourth quarter, we turned the ball over a variety of times again.”

Poor rebounding as well – on offense and defense – had an impact on the game, Smith said. Oilfields consistently had two to three attempts each possession.

“We definitely lost the battle of the boards,” he said. “We missed a lot of little easy ones, even when we got the ball where we wanted to. That just came down to guys being a little too excited and too jittery.”

The varsity boys had their next game against Holy Trinity Academy on Feb. 12. The results were unavailable as of press time.

“They’re the ones that have to go out and do it,” Smith said. “We’re just going to continue to do what we’re doing, the guys have to do it on the floor. It depends on day to day, what team you get that shows up.”

Smith did say two leaders on his team, Grade 10 Josh Lawal and Grade 12 Adrian Doig, helped the entire squad get focused during their near-comeback.

“For the boys to get their minds straight and claw back out of that deficit was a real test to character,” Smith said. “A lot of teams would’ve just said, ‘too bad we’re losing, let’s give up’, and they didn’t. They played right to the end.”