Houston County basketball starts comeback effort too late in loss to Southwest-Macon; Lady Bears bounce back with win over Lady Patriots

WARNER ROBINS — The Houston County Bears (8-4) faced off against the Southwest-Macon Patriots (10-1) in the highly anticipated finale of the Bear Brawl on Saturday.

The crowd buzzed before the game and was vocal throughout, though the Bears fell 61-53 after coming back from down 19.

Three observations from the game:

Starting the comeback too late

HoCo made a strong push to come back late in the game, but their 29-10 deficit halfway through the second quarter proved to be too much.

During that roughly 12-minute stretch the Bears could not buy a basket. Jumpers that usually fall weren’t going in, and it seemed like everything Southwest put up fell through the net.

From the 4:39 mark in the second quarter, HoCo outscored Southwest 43-32 and brought the game to single digits several times in the second half, but the Patriots kept pushing ahead.

“Missing shots, they weren’t falling. We got so many open shots, shots that we just accustomed to hitting that just weren’t falling,” Bears coach Buddy Bivins said on what led to their early deficit. “We knew eventually it would fall, but we dug ourselves a hole. Harping on the days where shots don’t fall, you can’t continue to settle for jump shots, we gotta continue to get stops, that’s the message I gave them [in the locker room].”

Shots not falling

One of the players who felt the effects of a lid on the basket the most was Malik Gillespie. He scored six points in the first three quarters of the game, and did come alive in the fourth quarter with three 3-pointers, but it was too late by then.

Gillespie’s pull-up shooting is usually a great weapon for HoCo, but no matter the spot he found he just couldn’t get them to fall.

Other players had shots roll off of the rim, or go in and out on 3-point attempts, and they weren’t able to get the stops they needed to offset that.

“You gotta try to take it to the basket,” Bivins said on the game plan when shots aren’t falling. “I feel like we settled too much, even though we were taking shots, they weren’t always terrible shots, but I feel like we settled too much. We weren’t patient enough to try to break the defense down and get in there.”

“But it is what it is, we got four days to work on it. So we gonna try to figure out a way to get the ball inside. Braylin Mills is starting to come alive, starting to get in better shape. [We can] start to use him when we’re struggling to get shots to go.”

Southwest lived on the glass

Braylin Mills gives HoCo a size advantage they don’t usually have, and to this point teams they’ve played haven’t had an answer for him.

Southwest didn’t have a one-for-one answer for Mills, but had the closest thing to it with 6-foot-7 senior Kyle Jefferson.

The Patriots as a whole crashed the glass hard, got outlet passes out to leaking players to get behind the HoCo defense for easy scores. Even if Mills grabbed a board, they were heavily contested and occasionally ripped away. Nothing came easy for the Bears.

“They do a good job of crashing the glass,” Bivins said. “That was one thing we worked on for the game. But we can’t make an excuse. One of our bigger guys Derek Henderson was sick, so he was unable to go out there. But we gotta be able to box out and still get rebounds.”

Lady Bears 50, Lady Patriots 33

The Houston County Lady Bears (4-8) avenged their Friday night loss to Lowndes with a 50-33 win over the Southwest Lady Patriots (1-6) on Saturday to close out the Bear Brawl.

Here are three observations from the win:

Turning the page

It’s easy to linger on crushing defeats like the one HoCo suffered at the hands of Lowndes on Friday, a 73-19 final with not much positive to say.

Wright said she wished the Lady Bears displayed their second quarter fight more throughout the game. On Saturday they turned the page and gave a much better effort.

“They turned the page, and that’s the one thing we ask. There’s gonna be learning instruments, how quickly can you turn the page,” HoCo coach Dani Wright said. “They responded to that very good, they had good enthusiasm coming in, especially after working a whole day. The girls were here doing the Bear Brawl from 9 a.m. all the way to now (before the HoCo boys game)…I’m very proud of them and how they responded with everything going on.”

Experimenting with different combinations

Wright threw out a multitude of combinations down low throughout the game, at least four.

Some of that was because Syniah Rankin and Aubree Yarnell were experiencing foul trouble, but seeing different players hit the court is a way to earn Wright’s confidence.

“Seeing some good stuff from people maybe who haven’t played as much like [against Lowndes]. Seeing what they gave us that game and being able to put them in,” Wright said. “I told my kids, once you start gaining my trust, my confidence in you, you get to go out there. So seeing that and them working together and pushing, it was kind of fun to change that.”

Kamryn Burke

Senior Kamryn Burke scored 10 of her 12 points in the third quarter, which was also most of HoCo’s 13 points in the period.

The Lady Bears swung the ball around and hit Burke with a cross-court pass for two 3-pointers, and HoCo continued to feed her as they distanced themselves from Southwest.

“She had her shooting game going strong, and we were calling a lot of the calls for her because she was hitting and she had the hot hand,” Wright said. “So that was fun for her to see, and see that blossom. We always tell the kids, whoever’s got the hot hand, give it to them. So they did, they responded to that very well.”

UP NEXT

The boys will play in the Battle Off Exit 19 tournament at Lowndes High School against Florida State University High School on Friday, Dec. 20 at 7 p.m. They will face Bishop Snider the next day at 4 p.m.

The Lady Bears’ next game won’t be until Friday, Dec. 27 against West Laurens at home at 1 p.m.