GARNETT — Iola High School boys basketball team got its season off to a rough start as it traveled to Anderson County. The Mustangs were defeated 43-31.
IHS was held scoreless for the first four minutes of the game after struggling out of the gates. IHS trailed 9-2 after the first quarter. That would be an indicator of how the night would go for the Mustangs.
“I had some questions about my team coming in,” said IHS head coach Luke Bycroft. “There is a lot of turnover from last year. I had some questions about who would play well.”
In the second quarter, the Mustangs picked up the pace a bit and closed Anderson County’s lead to four, trailing 18-14 at the half. The first half could be summed up in a word, rough. But towards the end of the half, IHS looked like they had something coming together.
Iola’s Tyler Boeken (back), Cortland Carson (middle), and Eli Adams (front) wait for a ball to be put in play Photo by Reese Becker / Iola Register Iola’s Brett Morrison prepares to inbound a ball Photo by Reese Becker / Iola Register Iola’s Cooper Riley searches for a teammate to pass to Photo by Reese Becker / Iola Register Iola’s Eli Adams gets a fast break and prepares for a layup Photo by Reese Becker / Iola Register Iola’s Landon Weide passes to Tyler Boeken Photo by Reese Becker / Iola Register Iola’s Landon Weide dribbles the ball while Eli Adams runs down the court Photo by Reese Becker / Iola Register Iola’s Sam Fager runs up the court. Photo by Reese Becker / Iola Register
Coming out of the second half, both teams settled down and began to slow the pace down a little. IHS was mounting quite a rally, closing the Anderson County lead to two points towards the end of the quarter, but a big Anderson County three-pointer as the quarter ended seemed to drain the energy right out of IHS.
“That was one of the few times tonight our attitude was down,” Bycroft said of the players after the three-pointer. “One of the issues with that is, we were trying to run a set and get the last shot of the quarter. Because we couldn’t run what we wanted to offensively we gave up a shot. We forced a shot with time left that shouldn’t have come to that point.”
Despite IHS’ best efforts, the size of Anderson County was too much to overcome.
“It was a tough matchup to begin the season with their size and physicality,” Bycroft said.In a loss, Bycroft sees a few reasons to be optimistic.
“Their effort was outstanding,” Bycroft added. “We got down early and we didn’t give up. We cut it to a four-point game at the half and scrapped with them for the second half. They had shots fall down the stretch. If they didn’t, it could have been a tight game.”
Bycroft is hopeful the loss can be a starting point. With data on the team versus a real opponent, and film, the offensive woes that plagued the Mustangs can be fixed.
“I know we are going to grow offensively as the year goes on,” Bycroft explained. “We will figure out who we are on offense. I have something to work with now. Now, I can say where we need to go. I lost so many players from last year. We can build on effort, we can build on attitude, and we can build on scrappiness. We can build on the fact that we held them to 43 points. ACHS is going to score a lot more than that on some teams. Our offense will come.”
IHS showed resilience in the loss, something that will help them going forward.
“I’m proud of the boys for staying in the game,” Bycroft said. “They could have given up but they didn’t.”
The Mustangs have to rebound from the loss quickly. Monday the boys travel to Richmond to compete in the tournament at Central Heights High School.
“We are going to practice on Sunday,” Bycroft said. “I have some things to work on, some of that will have to do with what we see on film.”
