By T. Scott Boatirght
After seeing his Bearcats drop two of their last three contests, Ruston Bearcats basketball coach Ryan Bond simply wanted to see one thing from his team — to play hard.
And that the Bearcats did Tuesday night as Ruston raced to a 66-36 win over Ouachita Parish in District 2-5A play inside the Scotty Robertson Memorial Gym on the campus of Louisiana Tech University.
“We had lost two out of three, but the sky wasn’t falling,” Bond said about Ruston’s last three games. “I didn’t get dumber. The guys didn’t get worse. We just had some bad moments. We’re just going to keep fighting and keep working and that’s all we can do — play hard.”
Ruston did so against Ouachita as the Bearcats came out strong out of the gates, opening the game on a 9-0 run capped off by a Lontravious Dimmer 3-pointer at the 5:23 mark of the opening stanza.
The Bearcats led 17-7 by the end of the opening stanza before pushing that advantage to doubles digits at 30-19 at halftime.
“I was really pleased with the guys’ effort,” Bond said. “We still turned it over too many times. But we got some really good shots and guys were hitting them when they were open.”
A lot of those shots came with the ’Cats taking it to the basket and attacking the Lions with multiple dunks and inside shots.
“We wanted to do that tonight,” Bond said. “They play only one big man on the floor at one time so we knew that was something we could try to exploit. I keep saying it, but we’ve got really good players and really good kids and they want to win;
Freshman Ahmad Hudson made a handful of those dunks while even long range specialist Aiden Anding got in on the act with a pair of rim rockers of his own.
“Hudson played well and took it to the basket, but the other guys did, too,” Bond said. “It was a solid, all-around team win on both sides of the ball and that’s something we needed.”
Ruston also connected on six 3-pointers against the Lions, with Joran Parker leading the way with three — all coming in a second half in which the Bearcats outscored Ouachita 34-17.
“We made a lot of turnovers, especially in the first half, that led to easy baskets for them,” Bond said. “We let them stay within striking distance in the first half. But when we locked in good on the half-court situation, we did a good job.”
Hudson led the Bearcats with 19 points while Anding added 13.
Next up for the Bearcats (14-9, 4-2 in District 2-5A) will be a home game against West Monroe (13-10, 4-2 in 2-5A) on Friday.
“We’ve just got to maintain our focus, block out the noise and stay together as a team, especially getting near the end of the season,” Bond said. “The thing is, we’ve got to be ready for West Monroe.
“That means we’ve got to be ready for practice tomorrow. It’s about consistency. Somebody asked me what the game plan was — that’s to play hard. It’s really simple — play harder than the opponents.”
