Houston County beats Coffee to clinch one seed in Region 2-5A tournament

WARNER ROBINS — What was a close game in the first half exploded in the second as Houston County (17-6, 8-1 Region 2-5A) clinched the top seed in the Region 2-5A tournament with an 85-64 final.

Coffee (16-8, 5-4 Region) put up a fight on Friday with size and effort on the glass. Freshman Xavien Littleton was a problem for the Bears, standing at a stocky 6-foot-5 and 255 pounds.

Littleton was unstoppable when he got downhill, and in those moments head coach Buddy Bivins emphasized personal sacrifice for the team in the form of drawing charges.

“Basketball is the ultimate team game, so sometimes you got to sacrifice yourself for the better of the team,” Bivins said. “You get [Littleton] up out of there and get him in foul trouble it makes things a lot easier…That’s championship basketball, we got to be able to take charges. We got to be able to get rebounds, we got to be able to stand in front of them.”

“He’s just one of them guys that if you don’t put a body on him constantly he’s going to find his way to the ball.”

Stepping out of the way of the metaphorical freight train was a problem for HoCo, and it bled into the rebounding effort.

The Trojans had no issue grabbing enough offensive rebounds to stay in the game. Littleton muscled through whoever he wanted to and had a lot of looks at the basket.

Braylin Mills came in for the final two minutes of the first quarter (after a very solid start from Mahkel Stephens) and got some key defensive rebounds to go with a pair of blocks, but it was still a two-point game by the end of the period.

Josh Jackson got a filthy no-look pass through the defense to Andrew Wahiwe, who finished a tough and-one to put HoCo up 28-21 with about four minutes to play until halftime.

As an additional sweetener, Littleton picked up his second foul and Coffee decided to sit him until late in the third quarter.

But still, the Trojans hung around down 35-32 at the break.

“It was bad. As much as we’ve worked on it, it’s crazy we’re still not getting rebounds,” Bivins said. “We gave up too many second-chance points. [In the] first half, Littleton, I think we counted he already had eight offensive rebounds and he scored like 11 points off of them.”

“It’s going to end up biting us, so hopefully it clicks when it needs to click. But we definitely didn’t answer [after Lee County]. We’re getting over being more talented offensively…but if we have to go on the road in a playoff game we definitely don’t want to rely solely on offense.”

The Bears did eventually separate themselves in the second half thanks to the efforts of their guards.

Malik Gillespie and Josh Jackson combined for 19 points in the third quarter. Most of that came at the basket as the duo put immense pressure on the interior defense opening up other players or shots for themselves. Timely turnovers allowed for some transition scores, too.

Gillespie had fight straight points early in the third, and without Littleton on the floor the rim was much more inviting. Karon Plummer got a pass up to Jackson in the break for a slippery layup and a 10-point lead.

Littleton picked up his third foul less than two minutes after hitting the floor and was pulled again, and by quarter’s end the Bears led 61-46.

Back-to-back three-pointers from Wahiwe and K.J. Johnson made it a 19-point game, and for all intents and purposes the game was over at that point.

“They were trying to full out deny Josh and Malik, so it was opening up driving lanes,” Bivins said. “So when the other one didn’t have it we just drove inside. Then we get the lane, once we got the lane we got to the free throw line. Once we got to the free throw line, we got in a rhythm and then the onslaught of the runs.”

UP NEXT

With this victory HoCo clinched the top seed in the Region 2-5A tournament, meaning they won’t play during the play-in round at Northside High School on Feb. 10. Their first game will be on Feb. 13 at Coffee High School for the semifinals.

Coffee is the three seed and will likely play Northside, the six seed, in the play-in round on Feb. 10. The schedule is to be announced, however.