By T. Scott Boatright
Down a key player only minutes into the game, the Lincoln Preparatory School boys basketball team looked a little chaotic early on during a Division IV Boys Select School second-round game Tuesday night.
But Lincoln Prep coach Antonio Hudson purposely slowed his team down more than once in the second half and the fifth-seeded Panthers responded with a 50-42 win over 21st-seeded Highland Baptist at the LPS Gym.
Panthers sophomore Trey Spann scored the first points of the contest with a layup 2:01 into the contest but soon left the game for good after coming down hard on a hand.
And without Spann on hand to help direct Lincoln Prep’s offensive attack, the Panthers ran a little wild in the first half, with things knotted up at 7-7 at the end of the opening stanza before they went on a 9-4 run in the final three minutes of the second quarter to take a 24-19 lead into the locker room at halftime.
“We had been working to get back to playing up-tempo because there’s a couple of teams we may end up playing that don’t go deep benchwise,” Hudson said. “We felt like that kind of game would help us wear them down.
“But losing Trey kind of hurt us today, too, because we lost 13 or 14 points with him out of the game early on. But hey, we won. That’s what matters. In the playoffs it doesn’t matter how it looks as long as you end up scoring more points than the other team.”
Hudson is hopeful Spann might return for the Panthers’ third-round game to be played at fourth-seeded St. Mary’s on Friday.
“They said it’s not broken,” Hudson said about Spann’s hand. “It looked bad when I saw it. But maybe —- hopefully – he’ll be able to come back. Losing him really hurt us — tonight you could tell.”
Looking to change things up, Hudson had his Panthers (now 18-8) slow things down with a lot of ball movement and fewer shots put up in the third quarter, helping Lincoln Prep build an eight-point advantage at 39-31 heading into the final stanza.
“Execution,” Hudson said. “We’ve been talking about this all year, but we weren’t executing the way we needed to in the first half. We were up eight points with the ball, got the ball to the middle and instead of making the extra pass got tied up and got a jump ball call. The next possession we get the ball in the middle and instead of passing the ball off we try to make a hero step and turn it over.
“That’s not how champions play. If you’re up by eight with the ball and have a chance to make a layup, I don’t care who shoots that layup. You get it and go up by 10 and then 12. Then Highland Baptist would have been in panic mode.”
The fact that the Panthers hit on only 11 of 30 attempted free throws didn’t help.
”So instead of sending them into panic mode, we don’t make our free throws and suddenly it’s a six-point game,” Hudson said. “I’m just glad we were able to settle down and come away with the win.”
Hudson, who took the chance of slowing his offense down again late in the game, knew that a young team having a first-round bye for the playoffs might not be conducive to helping his Panthers.
“That’s why we played the Dunham game we scheduled last week just so we could try and keep some rhythm. You have some teams that can afford that layoff, but with younger teams, sometimes not having that layoff is actually better.
“But again, we won, and that’s all that really matters.”
Stephen Burks III led the Panthers with 19 points on the night while adding 11 rebounds, five steals and an assist.
Amarje Young chipped in with nine points, seven steals, three rebounds and a pair of steals for the Panthers, who were also helped by nine points, five rebounds, a steal and a blocked shot from Zion Hicks along with six points, six blocked shots, 10 boards, two assists and two steals by Devin Burton.
