Loss to Louisville doesn't dampen excitement within Woodridge boys basketball
The Woodridge boys basketball team lost 65-50 to Louisville Jan. 15 as part of the Spectrum Orthopedics Classic at North Canton Hoover.
The final result didn’t matter to Bulldogs head coach Ric Blevins.
“I don’t care what the scoreboard says,” he said. “I can watch a basketball game and understand when my kids are playing better and playing together, and they were doing both of those things against Louisville. I think our kids knew that Louisville was good and that they were going to have to show up and play better. And, honestly, they answered that challenge.”
Woodridge, which slipped to 9-4, took a 17-11 lead after one quarter before falling behind 37-29 at halftime and then 55-40 after three quarters.
“Louisville got hot shooting the basketball in the second quarter,” said Blevins. “They’re a very good basketball team. I will be surprised if they do not advance to the regionals. They’ve got length, they’ve got everything. I thought our kids did a great job at the beginning of the game. We confused Louisville defensively and were able to score some baskets.”
Leading the way for Woodridge were senior power forward Esseck Bryant with 13 points, junior shooting guard Owen Snyder with 12 points and sophomore small forward Evan Duve with 11 points.
“Owen is a player who every team needs,” Blevins said. “I don’t need him to score because he does so many other things, but he can still score the basketball. He gets opportunities and he’s a pretty good shooter. You don’t have to tell him anything twice. You ask him to do something once and he’ll do it for the rest of his life. He’s a guy who we can’t be without.
“Evan was all over the floor. It was his best-effort game of the season. He just fought, scratched and clawed at both ends of the floor, and that was exactly what we needed. We needed somebody who was willing to do that, and he was.”
The day before, on Jan. 14 at home, Woodridge lost 44-43 to Metro Athletic Conference rival Norton.
The Bulldogs, who fell to 5-2 in the MAC, trailed 15-9 after the first quarter before closing the gap to 21-18 at the half and then 30-28 after the third quarter.
“We struggled,” said the coach. “We had a hard time finding any offensive flow, and it just didn’t seem like we ever could kind of get the lead. The couple times that we had the lead, we couldn’t extend it. Defensively, we did a great job for the most part except that we just couldn’t get stops when we absolutely had to have stops. It was a one-, two-possession game pretty much all four quarters, but we just came out on the wrong end of it. If we’d have played anywhere near against Norton the way we played against Louisville, I think it’s a different outcome.”
Pacing Woodridge were Bryant with 13 points, Snyder with 10 points and senior point guard Ben Kiser with nine points.
“Esseck is able to score the basketball for us,” Blevins said. “He’s a weapon for us with his height and his length. We need him to be a little bit more physical, and we need him to be more of a leader on the floor.
“Ben doesn’t have to score for us to play well. It’s nice when he does, but he’s the guy who is responsible for running our offense and making sure we’re in good position to score.”
Blevins’ squad has been through a grind recently – seven games in 13 days.
“We knew it was going to be tough,” he said. “Coming into that, we were playing really well. Coming out of it, not so much, but our personnel has changed quite bit, too, with Gerelle King and Deon Horn only being partial qualifiers. We’ve had to kind of readjust what we’re doing on both sides of the ball, and our guys are starting to adjust to it. Maybe we didn’t win as many games in that seven-game stretch as we would’ve liked to, but I think, come February, going through that is going to make us a better basketball team.”
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Loss to Louisville doesn't dampen excitement within Woodridge boys basketball
