Hornets fall short in pool play
Dec. 28—CONROE — On the first day of the 57th annual Conroe Christmas Classic, Huntsville boys' basketball was unable to find a win.
The Hornets played both of their pool games on Tuesday as they dropped games against Jersey Village and Conroe.
Despite a late comeback against Jersey Village, the Hornets dropped the game 63-50 before losing to Conroe 69-47 in the afternoon.
"I thought we did some good things," Huntsville head coach Jay Oliphant said. "We decided to come out and slow the ball down some during this tournament and it worked well for us. It's just small things we didn't do well. We have to go out there and rebound and take care of the ball. For the most part, today we didn't do that."
Both games for the Hornets shaped up similarly. The Hornets would face a large deficit and then their defensive efforts would help bring them back in the game.
Against Conroe, the Hornets would go down 16-5 in the first few minutes but a 9-5 run by the Hornets would put them within four.
Huntsville would look to Ayden Pierson for the scoring as he had 14 points against Conroe.
The downfall for Huntsville was their rebounding abilities.
"Offensively, we did some real good things," Oliphant said. "Defensively, the rebounding killed us in both games. If you take away the second chance points, we are right there. It's a growing pain from this year and we are going to learn from it and move along."
Huntsville was out-rebounded leading to several second chance opportunities. Against Jersey Village, the Hornets lost the rebounding game as well as against Conroe.
One leading factor in this is the Hornet's size and youthfulness under the basket. Huntsville looks for sophomores Caleb Williams and Hezekiah Johnson under the basket.
Both Williams and Johnson played well in their roles but without experience and size, opponents were able to outmatch them in several instances.
Huntsville also saw freshman Keyshawn Alexander and Chad Johnson to help lead this team.
But, in order for the Hornets to find success against teams, they will need to play as a team of five on the court.
"It's going to have to be by committee," Oliphant said. "In the past we had some big guys that were able to clean up the glass, but it's going to have to be by committee. Everybody is going to have to help."
Now, Huntsville will have to shift their focus into bracket play. Huntsville will have to wait until later tonight to find their fate after going 0-2 in pool play.
The Conroe Christmas Classic saw 18 teams from the Houston area and after pool play will divide them into four brackets.
Despite the opponent, the only thing Oliphant wants to see is improvement from his team.
"I want to see us get a little bit better," Oliphant said. "If we rebounded 50 percent today, I want to see us rebound 55 percent tomorrow. We just need to get better and get ready for the district."
