The Louisiana Class B prep hoops dynasty known as the Simsboro Tigers showed they remain alive, well and ready for more Friday night in quarterfinals playoff action.
Simsboro used a strong start to march to a 81-62 win over the Saline Bobcats before a sold-out crowd at the SHS Gym.
The victory sends Simsboro to Marsh Madness — the Boys Top 28 state tournament —- for a seventh straight time. The Tigers won Class B state titles in 2018, 2019 and 2021. And in 2020 they lost in overtime in the championship game. Anything less than another back-to-back championship won’t be enough for the Tigers or their head coach, Josh Brown.
“It’s our program — our coaching staff and players. They built this,” Brown said of his team’s success in recent years. “The thing is, our older players set an example for the younger players, showing them that we strive for excellence. We almost demand perfection. The older kids set that standard, and when the younger kids see that, they end up maturing the same way and as the ones on the floor setting the example for the new younger kids. Our players know what is expected of them. And they come through and produce. I’m really proud of our guys. Winning seven quarterfinal games in a row is tough to do.
“We’re celebrating tonight. I’m really happy for the team. But I told them, this wasn’t our goal. We’ve made it to Lake Charles, but our goal is to go down there and win two more games.”
Simsboro has a handful of players capable of taking over a game, and against Saline that was junior Chilaydrien “C-Bo” Newton, who ignited for 21 of his 36 total points in the first half to help the Tigers pull out to a 46-26 halftime advantage.
“He was really aggressive early on and got to the rim,” Brown said of Newton. “We know we had a big size advantage with him being a 6-4 point guard. We knew we had a good match-up and put some sets in to take advantage of that, and he did a great job of knocking down shots. Our guys are so unselfish that when we have a player that’s going like that, they really feed him the ball. All of our guys were great tonight, but it was C-Bo that got us off to the great start.”
But Saline didn’t back down, outscoring Simsboro 23-21 in the third quarter and refusing to back down until the very end.
“Give credit to Saline, they wouldn’t quit,” Brown said. “Saline’s Clint Robinson is a great coach and I tried to tell our guys at the half, when we were up by 16, that this game isn’t over. He’s going to have them ready to come back out. They have a ton of seniors and those kids didn’t want tonight to be their last game. So I’ve got to give Saline a lot of credit. A lot of teams, when we got up 20-something early, a lot of teams would have just folded and given up. But those guys from Saline never gave up. They played hard and earned our respect.”
Jordan Crawford added 13 points for Simsboro while Nick Maryland chipped in with 10 and Lee Abney hit for nine.
Simsboro, the No. 1 seed in Class B at 30-3 on the season, now turns its attention toward a semifinal showdown against fourth-seeded Lacassine next week.
Laccasine defeated fifth-seeded Doyline 74-66 Friday night.
Brown said he expects the playing date and time for the semifinal game to be announced today.
“We watched a ton of film on them,” Brown said about Lacassine. “We don’t like to look ahead. We’re always focused on one game at a time — the next one. But as a coach and because this tourney happens so fast, you have to be prepared if you do win. We’ve watched some film on them, but we also watched film on Doyline. So now we know how to dig into this. We’re going to try and enjoy this tonight and I’ll be up early in the morning starting to break down film on Laccasine.”
