11/23/209 - Young Roadrunners’ Hard Lessons Behind, Ready to Start Conference Play Long before the tipoff signaling the beginning of the regular season, Angelina College men’s basketball coach Todd Neighbors knew overcoming his team’s lack of experience would be the key to getting through the pre-conference portion of the schedule. With 12 freshmen joining a single returning sophomore, on-the-job training would be a crucial part of the learning curve for the 2009-2010 Roadrunners. As expected, there have been struggles, with the ‘Runners battling to a 4-4 record entering Tuesday’s conference opener against Jacksonville. In at least three of those losses, the Roadrunners fell behind early, fighting back to within striking distance of a win only to fall short for lack of what Neighbors referred to as “closing skills.” But in Friday night’s 70-63 win over Richland – the second of two straight tough road games – AC showed Neighbors what he’s been hoping to for the past three weeks. “I’ve been telling these guys for a while that they had to learn how to win at this level, and to do that they’d have to do a better job closing out games,” Neighbors said on Saturday. “Last night (against Richland), they did that by playing with heart, desire and some big defensive stops down the stretch.” Joe Mitchell, who with Adrick McKinney leads the team in scoring at 11.3 points per game, scored 17 against Richland. Sophomore Takoby Jackson added 14, and Adrick McKinney chipped in with 10 points and six rebounds. Freshman Trent Brantley scored 12 points, but Neighbors said Brantley’s biggest play came near the end, when Brantley blocked a shot to prevent Richland from a late-game rally. The win over Richland came a day after a tough 65-63 loss to Ranger, a team that had taken nationally ranked Trinity Valley to overtime just a week before. Still, Neighbors said he’s seeing exactly what he needed to see in terms of overall progress and team chemistry. The eight pre-conference games, according to Neighbors, helped the young players understand more just what it will take to compete in one of the nation’s toughest JUCO conferences. “Our pre-conference scheduled has definitely prepared us for conference play,” Neighbors said. “Some of our weaknesses were exposed early, and our guys rose to the challenge of getting better every day. “We wanted to be better than 4-4 at this point, but what matters most is how we’ve grown as a team. Now we’re just focused on being 1-0 in Region XIV. I told our guys good teams learn from their failures. We just have to continue growing stronger physically, mentally and team-wise.” The Roadrunners will host Jacksonville Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
|
||||
