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Aurora Hound Dawgs trounce Tigers at Carthage Invitational
The Nevada Tigers varsity basketball team opened their season against the Hound Dawgs of Aurora High School Monday night with less than stellar results.
No one knew going into the game what kind of team that head coach John McNeley would have this year, but the performance was still much different from what was expected. "They didn't do anything we weren't anticipating, we had practiced everything," McNeley said. "If we had done things that were within our control, we could have made it harder on them."
The Tigers got off to a slow start in the game, completely unable to penetrate the strong defense that the Dawgs showed right from the outset. Aurora's offense took control of the game early as well, getting great looks from all areas of the court and exhibiting a definite propensity for taking shots from outside the arc and missing very few of them.
By the time the first quarter came to and end, it was apparent that this would be a very one-sided contest. The Tigers found themselves in a deep hole, down 33-4 after just the first eight minutes of play.
The second quarter seemed to be more of the same for both sides as Aurora came up with three steals in the first two minutes alone, to bring their total in the game up to 10. Nevada's offense was finally able to get a little bit of a comeback going late in the period, but was still plagued by very poor shooting from the field and ended up taking a 55-17 deficit into the locker room for halftime.
Neither team was able to get to the free-throw line more than once in the first half, but both teams were able to capitalize on their one trip to the stripe as Ben Fisher hit both of his shots for Nevada and Aurora's Golden Brown repeated the same feat.
Aurora's defensive dominance seemed to relax a bit in the third quarter, but continued shooting woes didn't allow Nevada to take advantage. The Tigers continuously got good looks from all areas of the court, but simply couldn't get the shots to fall.
Nevada was able to come up with a few strong defensive plays in the third quarter, including their second and third steals of the game, but the offense simply wasn't there and the Tigers only put up eight points and took a 77-25 deficit into the final period. Aurora's offense was only able to add one more steal to their total in the period, but their offensive dominance still seemed to simply be too much for Nevada to handle.
The fourth quarter saw another defensive stand by Aurora that led to four more steals -- bringing their total in the game up to 15 -- and poor shooting from the field remained the thorn in the Tigers' side. By the time all was said and done, the Hound Dawgs found themselves on the winning end of the 84-31 final score.
Both teams did a much better job in the second half of drawing fouls and making it to the stripe. Nevada went 2-for-6 from the line in the half while Aurora made five of their 10 foul shots to further add to their advantage.
The offensive effort on the night for the Tigers was led by Jordan Tumm with eight points while Aurora's Kaleb Roy put up 21 -- all in the form of 3-point shots.
After the game, McNeley said that the Tiger defense simply did not do a good job of faking passes and looking defenders off the ball to create passing lanes, which compounded the issues that the offense suffered throughout the game. In addition, McNeley stressed that the Tigers were not outclassed in the game athletically, but merely did not play well.
"You can't contest every shot, but you can make the maximum effort to contest every shot," he said. Contesting shots, McNeley said, was something the Tigers failed to do throughout the game.
Even with all the issues he cited in the game, McNeley did admit that the Tigers had a much better finish to the game. "We really competed hard in the second half," he said.
With the loss, the Tigers fall into the loser's side of the tournament bracket and are scheduled to play the loser of Tuesday night's game between Seneca and Carthage on Thursday at 6 p.m.