El Dorado prepares for 6A state semifinals.
HOT SPRINGS – If normal cats have nine lives, El Dorado’s basketball Wildcats at least have two. The Wildcats saw their basketball season flash before their eyes Thursday, when they survived Marion 56-53 in the quarterfinals of the 6A State Tournament.
El Dorado (27-4) will take on Pine Bluff in the semifinals today at 1:30 p.m. at Lake Hamilton High School in Pearcy.
Down by two, Marion missed a long 3-point attempt to potentially end the Wildcats’ season. The Patriots limited El Dorado to one made 3-pointer in the game and senior center Daniel Gafford was handcuffed by fouls and spent most of the game on the bench.
Coach Gary Simmons said winning under those circumstances should make his team prepared for anything.
“Anytime you can put your kids through a little adversity and they come up and make plays like Daniel diving on the floor for a
loose ball and coming up and calling timeout,” said Simmons. “Czar getting a hand in the shooter’s face on the 3-point line and Czar breaking the press and hitting free throws and Ryu hitting big free throws at the end of the game. Anytime you put kids in that situation, it’s just going to make them better.
“Would I have liked to have blown them out, like we were capable of doing, yeah. But, it may come down in the semifinals, Daniel might be sitting in the same place. You can’t ever tell the way the game is being officiated, right now. I think (Thursday night) was probably the best thing that could’ve happened to us to be honest with you.”
The coach pointed to defensive rebounding as an area of importance.
Simmons said El Dorado surrendered 17 second-chance points to the Patriots.
“If we stay out of foul trouble and take care of little things like blocking out and stopping penetration, I think we’ll be looking at the finals. If we don’t, it’ll be a long night and it’ll be a toss-up like it was (Thursday night),” Simmons said.
“We just need to learn from our mistakes and move on. If we don’t rebound any better than that (today), we’ll be coming home. Pine Bluff is a better rebounding team that what we faced (on Thursday).”
As for Gafford, who appears to be a victim of the whistles more often than not, the coach said the 6-11 center cannot change his game.
“You just tell Daniel to just keep playing like he’s playing. Sometimes he’s going to get some calls. Sometimes he’s not,” said Simmons.
“It’s nothing he hasn’t faced all year long, really. That’s exactly how the Texarkana game went at Texarkana. I mean, that was scripted exactly like it went at Texarkana except we won this one and lost by three down there.”
El Dorado defeated Pine Bluff 76-73 at Wildcat Arena in mid-November. The Zebras survived in overtime, 47-44, against West Memphis late Thursday night.
Simmons said the previous meeting means nothing.
“I think we’re both two completely different teams now,” he said.
“They had a couple kids who were in football. They’re back now. I looked at the film from the first game. We were playing a lot of young kids, lot of inexperienced kids. Most of our bench that we’re playing right now, wasn’t even with us because they were still in football. So, it’s two completely different teams.”
The Zebras boast a 21-8 record, including a pair of losses to El Dorado nemesis, Mills University. One of those was a 44-43 setback.
“It depends on which Pine Bluff we see. Last night against West Memphis, they were doing a really good job attacking the basket,” said Simmons. “Kind of similar to Marion, they’re going to try to get right up in us and play man defense. Most of the time that benefits us because Czar and Ryu do such a good job breaking people down off the dribble.”
El Dorado drove home after Thursday game, went to classes on Friday before driving back to Hot Springs Friday afternoon. Simmons said he likes his team’s attitude.
“Very business-like,” he said. “A lot of times we go on the road, I let ‘em bring the video games and do stuff like that. The seniors were laying down the law on the bus back home. We’re not bringing any of that. Don’t whine around about it. We’ll be in bed early. I think it’s very businesslike as far as our kids go and that’s big for them.”