Perry basketball puts up solid defensive effort in loss; Lady Panthers struggle with turnovers, free throw shooting in scrimmage against Dodge County

The Perry Panthers made an impressive effort in their 54-44 loss against the Dodge County Indians in a scrimmage on Tuesday.

The starting unit had all three of the Panthers’ upperclassmen in it as well as sophomore Keaton Stevens and freshman Kam Thomas, and gave fans a reason to be encouraged during their time on the floor.

Here are three observations:

PHOTOS: See more pictures from Tuesday’s scrimmage.

1. Defensive effort

The highlight of Perry’s first half was their defensive effort against the Indians, who only scored two points in the first quarter, and that basket came with 10 seconds remaining.

The Panthers moved their feet very well, keeping Dodge County ball handlers in front of them and forcing them into many contested shots in the first half. Help was timely and didn’t foul (much), and the rotations were good enough to keep the Indians from getting wide open shots.

The offense wasn’t as pretty, only scoring 10 points in the first quarter, but Perry closed out the first half with a 16-5 run in the final 4:32 led by junior Josh Weatherspoon who was responsible for eight of those points.

Panthers head coach Mark Gainous was encouraged by the results of their first action of the season.

“I thought the guys played hard…I felt like our half court defense was pretty good, especially for a first game with a bunch of freshmen and sophomores,” Gainous said. “I got to give guys credit, they did a pretty good job.”

2. Points off of turnovers

The Dodge County offense didn’t get going until the third quarter when they upped the defensive pressure.

The Indians met Perry’s ball handlers at half court and beyond, aggressively poking at the ball. Even if the Panthers beat their man, Dodge County’s defenders often poked the ball from behind and got out in the break.

Perry played sound defense in the half court, but when the Indians got out on the break they struggled. They lost most of their two-versus-one situations, and fouled drivers on more than one occasion. They also gave up offensive rebounds, which gave Dodge County even more opportunities to cut their deficit before eventually claiming the lead.

The Indians took the 34-32 lead after a 14-2 run with 1:34 left in the third quarter, and they never looked back.

Gainous believes that experience is something that will help those turnover issues.

“You can tell we have younger guards. A couple times where we didn’t turn it over initially…maybe we didn’t have the awareness that somebody was coming up behind us for the tip or somebody was coming to trap,” Gainous said. “The way that we practice, we don’t do a lot of pressing, so that’s something we can get as the year goes along. Guys get used to handling against pressure full court.”

3. Offensive struggles

Perry only scored 16 second-half points, including six in the third quarter when the game flipped on its head.

The turnovers certainly didn’t help that, but the Panthers also missed plenty of open shots. Call some of it shooting luck, but Gainous believes that part of it was personnel, and that they’ll find the right balance as the season goes along.

“We won’t play 10 guys in the first game against Howard. We’ll try to get that rotation down to about eight guys, with six of those guys playing a bulk of the minutes,” Gainous said. “So that’s the first thing, just getting our personnel, and then just continue to work against maybe a little bit more pressure in practice.”

Lady Panthers versus Lady Indians

One of the biggest focuses for head coach Fran McPherson this year is taking care of the basketball, and it’s evident the Lady Panthers still have some work to do.

Tuesday’s scrimmage saw the Dodge County Lady Indians come out on top over Perry, and turnovers played a big part in that.

Three observations from the scrimmage:

1. Rampant turnovers

One of the reasons the Lady Panthers were on the wrong side of many blowouts last year was not taking care of the basketball. No matter what sport it is, at what level, if you turn the ball over it’s hard to win.

Perry didn’t look bad when they managed to string together a couple of actions, but it wasn’t often that they were able to do that.

Dodge County blitzed screens, double-teamed ball handlers and jumped passing lanes to take the ball out of the Lady Panthers’ hands and get out on the break. But you can’t give all the credit to the Lady Indians; Some of Perry’s turnovers were the result of off-target or ill-advised passes that either went out of bounds or into the hands of a defender.

Lady Panthers head coach Fran McPherson thinks that a lack of cohesiveness, with plenty of players still in other sports or not having played together, contributed.

“We haven’t had everybody all together yet. Like we still had some at flag football, and the continuity’s not there,” McPherson said. “The combinations I threw in, some of the kids never even played together before, and then we rolled in everybody from freshman to sophomore…We still have kids learning plays, freshmen that don’t know the plays, and you can’t really run things when you don’t know what to do.”

2. Struggles against size inside

The Lady Indians had a big size advantage on Perry, and her name is Lyric Green.

Green is a 6-foot tall senior forward who averaged 22 points per game and 16 rebounds during her 2023-24 season, and it wasn’t hard to see why.

From the very start Dodge County made sure to get the ball down low to her, and she used her big frame to overpower any defender the Lady Panthers threw out there.

Perry did see some success double-teaming her, but that only worked if they forced a turnover.

A result of the size mismatch was a lot of free throws for the Lady Indians; If Green or another big wasn’t fouled on the first attempt, the Lady Indians secured offensive rebounds and regularly ended up at the free throw line.

“She uses the square as good as anybody I’ve seen. She’s very fundamental, she moves well, she is a beast,” McPherson said of Green. “She is strong as she can be. We knew that we were going to have to box her out…we’ve got to realize that we’ve got to get into people. We just can’t move a little bit. You have really literally got to get position every time on anybody, but especially a player like that.”

3. Perry showed flashes

The Lady Panthers were down by as much as 25 in the first half, but they put together a 14-2 run in the final three minutes of the second quarter.

Sophomore guard Kampbell Mitchell drained a 3-pointer to start the run and bring Perry into the double-digits, and Cameryn McKenzie added a fast break layup and 3-pointer of her own for back-to-back-to-back baskets.

Senior forward Anna Dean got a shooters’ bounce on a three to push the run to 11-0, and it ended up 14-2 before halftime.

What fueled those few minutes was defense. Perry was aggressive, and instead of fouling, came away with a few turnovers and got out on the break. The first three from Mitchell was the result of them stringing together a couple of dribble handoffs, passing it into the paint and kicking it out to find a shooter.

McPherson credits their press defense with that run.

“I put on the board, [when we’re] doing our press defense, there’s always one kid who lets up and lets their man touch the ball. If we can stop doing that, and we can get some five second counts or we can trap the ball, or we can be in the passing lane, that’s what we need,” McPherson said.”

UP NEXT

Perry will have almost two weeks to sit on and evaluate their scrimmage performance before opening their season at home against Howard on Saturday, Nov. 23 at 12 p.m. The boys’ team will tip off after.