Local basketball teams continue play at district tournaments.
If there is one facet of the 8-2A that will be on full display during the district tournament this week, it’s the strong depth the conference has.
Regardless of who they will face, Junction City, the No. 3 seed, will face an opponent that it split its conference games with.
Fordyce and Bearden squared off late Tuesday night with the winner to meet the Dragons at 8:30 p.m. tonight in Fordyce for a spot in the regional tournament, which Junction City is hosting next week.
The Dragons and Redbugs have met three times with the Dragons winning twice at home by scores of 54-46 during Dual State in December and 64-37 in league play in January. The Redbugs won at home 51-45 at the end of January.
The Dragons and Bears split their two games with each school winning on the road in a pair of onepoint games that were played 10 days apart in January.
Suffice it to say that no matter who the Dragons face tonight, they will have to play well if they want to have home-court advantage next week.
“I think we split with every team that’s seven or above in our conference,” Junction City coach Kendall Hutcheson said. “It’s just really weird the way the conference went this year. One through seven is probably the strongest I’ve ever seen it.
“Either one of those teams presents a different kind of challenge. Bearden shoots a lot of outside shots and a lot of long threes. Fordyce tries to pound it inside and attack the paint, so they’re totally different teams, and you can’t really prepare for one style when you’re getting ready for this one.”
With the Dragons not knowing who their opponent will be until late Tuesday night, Hutcheson said his team has been preparing for both teams.
“What I try to do is hit what I think hurts us for each team,” Hutcheson said. “We work on defend-
ing both of them. It’s not going to hurt us to work on defense, so we’ll work on Fordyce’s top two zone and man plays and make sure we know how to defend it. The same goes for Bearden. That way we recognize it. On game day, we’ll do a walkthrough practice, and whoever we’re playing, we’ll hit those plays again and make sure we’re ready to go.”
The Dragons earned the No. 3 seed by posting a 10-6 record, and they played well down the stretch, winning five of its last seven games that included a win over conference champion Lafayette County.
But while the Dragons have played well of late, they have had their ups and downs this season with turnovers being the main culprit.
“Offensively, we’ve got to take care of the basketball,” Hutcheson said. “We’re averaging over 20 turnovers a game. You look at our games, and the quarters that we don’t turn the ball over, we’re averaging over 20 points per quarter when we turn it over four times or less. In the quarters where we turn it over five times or more, we’re down around 15 and our opponents are over that, so when we’re not giving points up, we’re really hard to stop.
“If you look back at some of our losses, at Parkers Chapel, it’s a close game in the fourth quarter with about five minutes to go. You look at the end of the night, and we had 24 turnovers and gave up 28 points off turnovers. When we’re turning the ball over, we can lose to just about anybody in the conference. There’s no doubt about it.
“The game we lost to Fordyce, we’re up by 13 points at the end of the first quarter. We came out in the second quarter and turned it over six straight trips, and it goes from being a 13-point ballgame to a 3-point ballgame.
“Some of them are silly turnovers. We don’t watch the ball off our hands and it goes right out of bounds or we throw the ball over someone’s head when we’re not under pressure. Some of them are trying to split a double team when we shouldn’t. Just a lot of inexperienced mistakes, but the guards keep getting better and learning what’s going on.
“Every game it seems like we’re playing just a little bit within ourselves. If we learn how to take care of the ball, we’re going to be pretty tough. We’re just hoping we do what we normally do, and hopefully we’ll peak at the right time. At Junction, we never talk about conference championships. Yes, you’d like to be conference champs, but we don’t ever worry about that. We always play for the end goal, and we try to do whatever we can to get better for that.”
Although the Dragons have had their issues with turnovers, their size up front is a major strength, and that could go a long way towards determining the outcome of tonight’s game.
“If we can cut down on turnovers, we’ll be pretty tough to beat,” Hutcheson said. “It sounds kind of weird coming from Junction, but I think in the half-court, we’re really hard to stop because of our size and inside game. We’ve got some guys who can really shoot the ball this year. With our size, and the way we can get on the glass, even if we miss a shot, we have a good chance to go get it.
“Our problem hasn’t been missing shots, our problem has been getting shots at times. When you have 21 times a game that you’re not even getting the ball to the rim because you’re turning it over, that kills you. For us, it’s definitely going to be turnovers. I think if our turnovers are 15 and under, then I think we’ll be playing again next week.
“If we get to Wednesday night and we have over 15 turnovers, I’ll be surprised if we’re still playing. We just have to make sure we take care of the ball and that we’re playing within ourselves.”