Perry basketball searching for identity in early season; Lady Panthers off to best start since 2018

PERRY — The Perry Panthers (1-6) have been in a bit of a spiral the last few games, with their 80-53 loss at home to the Crisp County Cougars (3-1) the latest.

Three observations from Wednesday’s game:

Looking for a leader

One of the things Perry has struggled with is finding a leader. Not just a high character, coachable player, but one who will lead the others on and off of the floor.

That’s not uncommon for young teams, and right now the Panthers are feeling the worst effects of missing that voice.

“I asked them at halftime who the leader of the team is. We don’t have it,” Perry basketball coach Mark Gainous said. “We’re trying to find out who are the leaders of the team, and that’s where we’re struggling the most, with leadership. We have good guys, we have really high character guys, but who are the leaders of our team? That’s the biggest question for Perry High School right now.”

Identity crisis

One thing that goes hand in hand with lacking a leader is the lack of identity the Panthers have right now. Gainous didn’t mince words after their loss on Wednesday, their sixth of the season.

“Right now we’re just not very good. We had a couple guys out, two of our better players maybe in the program, out due to injury. But right now we don’t have an identity,” Gainous said. “We’re not good offensively, we’re not good defensively, we don’t get 50-50 balls, we don’t dive on the floor…so right now we’re just kind of lost, I’m gonna be honest with you. We’re lost.”

That’s not to say that Gainous doesn’t have an idea for what the Panthers want to be, but when building a program from the ground up it’s not so simple to implement one.

Again, Perry needs a leader to step up and embrace it to help it trickle down to the rest of the team.

“We want to be a defensive team, a tough team and a rebounding team, but we’re none of those. We don’t have the individual talent to beat the teams in our region by just trying to score,” Gainous said. “We just don’t have the guys, we don’t have the division one signee like three or four guys in our league, and that’s fine. But if we’re not gonna have the talent, it’s something that we got to be more together. That’s our STIX motto, we got to be all together.”

Conditioning and finding a niche

Some of the baby steps the Panthers are looking to take are improving their conditioning, which Gainous said is not where it needs to be, as well as finding their niche.

He wants that niche to be defending and rebounding, which are fundamental to fielding a competitive basketball team. Admittedly, he said that Perry is not doing either of those right now.

It’s easy to be discouraged early in a rebuild, and this is as early as it gets. The Panthers aren’t without talent, though.

Keelan Battle is comfortable behind the 3-point line, Josh Weatherspoon has shown some signs as a slasher and scorer around the rim, and Jaiden Coleman showed some defensive flashes last year.

It’s just a matter of time to figure out what kind of team Perry will be.

Lady Panthers 58, Lady Cougars 27

The Perry Lady Panthers are off to their best start since the 2018-19 season at 5-1 after their 58-27 victory over the visiting Crisp County Lady Cougars (1-3) on Wednesday.

Three observations from the win:

Best start in years

The last time the Lady Panthers started 5-1 was in the 2018-19 season where they ended with a 15-12 overall record and a first-round playoff appearance.

In 2024 they’ve matched that, and have the opportunity to eclipse that start with a win on the road against Hawkinsville on Saturday.

They’ve also had some of their largest margins of victory in recent history, most notably a 67-point win over Rutland on Dec. 2 and a 49-point win over Dooly County on Dec. 7.

“Wow, I didn’t realize that fact, I’m very excited to know that this team has reached that milestone and we’re just trying to talk about changing the culture and getting on the map,” Perry coach Fran McPherson said of their 5-1 start. “I think we were ranked number 19 in the state so I was very proud to see that. We’re in a tough region but to know that our kids are working and getting a little bit of recognition for what they’re doing, it makes me proud for them.”

With a hot start in the second year of a rebuild usually comes higher expectations. McPherson said the standard is high, but is this team ready to meet it?

The five teams Perry has beaten this season had a combined 26-95 record in 2023, with Peach County accounting for 17 of them. Rutland and Dooly County won a game a piece last year, with Crisp County winning two.

The fact that the Lady Panthers are not just beating, but dominating these programs shows improvement. Their full and half court pressure has given these teams serious trouble.

If they can turn the ball over less themselves and finish more shots at the basket, they’ll be able to contend with most teams they go up against.

“I do think there’s a lot of things we do need to work on because we’ve got to finish some shots, make some better passes. There’s always things that we can work on, and I’m glad at least we’re having these games against non-region opponents early so we can see some of that and fix it,” McPherson said.

This year their most quality win is certainly the 53-46 final on the road against Peach County, who was a Sweet 16 team last year.

Perry has the potential to rack up a few more wins before region play starts; They play Dooly County and Rutland again before the new year.

Second-quarter slowdown

The Lady Panthers came out to a strong 17-1 start after the first quarter, and that sole Lady Cougars score came at the end of it.

In the second quarter, though, Perry started to cough up the ball significantly more. Oftentimes they were able to steal the ball back and on other possessions Crisp County just wasn’t able to capitalize, but there was a window for the Lady Cougars to get back in the game.

The Lady Panthers slammed it shut with a 14-0 start to the third quarter to go up 42-15, ending the period up 47-22 on the way to a 58-27 final.

“I think we had a spell where we started quickly, then ground to a halt and that’s a thing we’ve got to avoid,” McPherson said. “Everbody’s got to be ready to shoot the ball and do what we do. But I think the third quarter we put our starting lineup from last year in there and they just gelled really quickly back together again. I just thought they were really dominant in that third quarter.”

Everyone gets a slice

It’s not uncommon to look at high school box scores and see one player with 20, maybe even 30 points and the next person to have anywhere from six to 12, if that.

When you look at the Lady Panthers’ it’s much more even, and it’s evident why when you see the product.

Perry is a very unselfish team and their pressure defense only fuels that. After securing the steal it’s extremely important to move the ball up the floor to a leaking player to get behind the defense for easy scores.

Just about everyone who hits the floor is a willing passer for the Lady Panthers.

“They’re totally unselfish, and you can see that. I mean they Would assume pass it as any of them [would] to shoot it,” McPherson said. “I think that’s just our philosophy is just make the extra pass, find the open person and we don’t really care who it is. We haven’t been scripting our plays to go to anybody specific, so that’s what you get [when] you run a four-out or five-out offense. Sometimes you don’t even know where the ball’s going to go.”

UP NEXT

Perry’s next game will be on Saturday, Dec. 14 on the road against Hawkinsville at 3 p.m. That will start a five-game road trip that will go until the end of the month.