Carolina Day sweeps holiday tournament titles
ASHEVILLE - Fayetteville Academy coach James Strong stated the obvious to his team and the entire gym at Carolina Day on Thursday night in the boys championship game of the WNC Holiday Basketball Classic.
“We can score,” Strong said less than two minutes into the second half against Carolina Day. “We gotta stop them from scoring.”
Only the Wildcats seemed to stop themselves in a 64-40 win over the Eagles.
They stalled for most of the final three minutes with four different guards sharing the responsibility of playing keepaway. Through all the other previous minutes, Carolina Day played with an unselfish character shared by championship teams.
“We went from playing with each other to playing for each other,” Carolina Day coach Trip Cogburn said. “We traded good shots for great shots and great shots for layups.”
The attitude carried over to the other end of the floor as well.
“If they beat our first guy, we helped on defense,” Cogburn said. “Then we helped the helper.
“It was our most consistent game of the season.”
Peyton Truesdale led the Wildcats with 19 points including four 3-pointers. Tai Giger scored 16 and fellow guard Raishaun Brown added 12 points.
The Carolina Day guards combined to make 11 3-pointers — nearly half of their points — and almost all of them were wide-open attempts. On one second-half possession, the Wildcats made five straight passes around the perimeter without taking a dribble. Luke Rutherford drained the shot to cap a perfect example of sharing and caring.
“We moved the ball and turned good to great,” said Truesdale, who buried four 3s. “We learn that in shell drills in practice.”
He described one drill that involves making 10 straight passes without taking a dribble.
Developing such chemistry and teamwork evolves each day in practice. For all but the final ten minutes of each practice day, teams are divided into white and blue. The runner-up team for the day runs — sprints, laps, suicides. The teams are mixed each day, never the same in order to build trust up and down the roster.
“Then we come together at the end and shoot free throws as a team,” Cogburn said. “We say it’s validation time, time to validate our practice for the day.”
Those practices have carried over to games.
“Unforeseen camaraderie can elevate a great team to a championship teams,” Cogburn said. “Just because we thought the bar was in one place doesn’t mean we can’t place it higher.”
ASHEVILLE - Fayetteville Academy coach James Strong stated the obvious to his team and the entire gym at Carolina Day on Thursday night in the boys championship game of the WNC Holiday Basketball Classic.
“We can score,” Strong said less than two minutes into the second half against Carolina Day. “We gotta stop them from scoring.”
Only the Wildcats seemed to stop themselves in a 64-40 win over the Eagles.
They stalled for most of the final three minutes with four different guards sharing the responsibility of playing keepaway. Through all the other previous minutes, Carolina Day played with an unselfish character shared by championship teams.
“We went from playing with each other to playing for each other,” Carolina Day coach Trip Cogburn said. “We traded good shots for great shots and great shots for layups.”
The attitude carried over to the other end of the floor as well.
“If they beat our first guy, we helped on defense,” Cogburn said. “Then we helped the helper.
“It was our most consistent game of the season.”
Peyton Truesdale led the Wildcats with 19 points including four 3-pointers. Tai Giger scored 16 and fellow guard Raishaun Brown added 12 points.
The Carolina Day guards combined to make 11 3-pointers — nearly half of their points — and almost all of them were wide-open attempts. On one second-half possession, the Wildcats made five straight passes around the perimeter without taking a dribble. Luke Rutherford drained the shot to cap a perfect example of sharing and caring.
“We moved the ball and turned good to great,” said Truesdale, who buried four 3s. “We learn that in shell drills in practice.”
He described one drill that involves making 10 straight passes without taking a dribble.
Developing such chemistry and teamwork evolves each day in practice. For all but the final ten minutes of each practice day, teams are divided into white and blue. The runner-up team for the day runs — sprints, laps, suicides. The teams are mixed each day, never the same in order to build trust up and down the roster.
“Then we come together at the end and shoot free throws as a team,” Cogburn said. “We say it’s validation time, time to validate our practice for the day.”
Those practices have carried over to games.
“Unforeseen camaraderie can elevate a great team to a championship teams,” Cogburn said. “Just because we thought the bar was in one place doesn’t mean we can’t place it higher.”
