Presbyterian Christian coach Josh Sherer’s goal, has been for his team to team simply get more touches inside the paint on Monday.
The Bobcats (14-3) did just that in their 73-44 win over Greene County as part of the school’s Hub City Bash tournament. Big men Caleb Brown and Zion Booth combined to put up 21 points while the team reached the free throw line 20 times.
PCS took an early 8-2 lead in the first quarter, but the Wildcats responded and narrowed the lead 11-8, which was the closest Greene County come within the Bobcats for the rest of the game. PCS close the quarter with an 8-2 run to take a 19-11 lead at the end of the quarter.
“We just start slow and struggle at times with a zone defense because we get so perimeter-oriented,” Sherer said. “We actually ran our man offense today because we wanted to dribble and drive to get us into the paint. We didn’t even run our zone stuff today.”
In the second quarter, the Bobcats’ offense maintained the momentum and went on an 11-4 run to extend their lead to 36-21 by halftime.
“Our emphasis was paint touches and post entry and offensive rebounds,” Sherer said. “It was a little slow in the first half. Defensively we picked it up, but that’s what I was disappointed in. Defensively, we were bad in the first half, I thought. Rotations were bad. Even though we took three charges, five is our goal per game. That came in the second half.”
Finally, in the third quarter, PCS pulled away by scoring 28 points in the third quarter after having much success crashing the boards and Brown coming up with several game-shifting slam dunks in the quarter.
“Caleb is a really good ballplayer,” Sherer said. “When he is at his best, we are really tough to beat. He’s had trouble this year finding his way against the zone. It’s just learning to read and figuring out what we want him to do. I think today we got a formula. When we dribble and drive and get paint touches, then we can dish it off and get him some good looks.”
Brown scored a team-leading 15 points while Booth put up six points.
“If they can control the glass, then we are a different team,” Sherer said. “The kids that we expect to have double-doubles every single night when they do that it changes the complexity of what we can do offensively. Even defensively, when they are changing people’s shots and things like that, the boards and securing the ball on both sides is something they do a great job at.”
Also scoring in double digits for PCS were Skyler Hill, who scored 13 points and CJ Bryant, who scored 14 points.
“I think we are as deep as we have ever been,” Sherer said. “We can play 10 or 12 deep, but can we stay consistent in our rotations? We do some things differently than most people by the way we push the ball to the sideline. We changed it up a bit today. It requires a lot of rotation and a lot of communication. We are not always at our best. It’s something we are doing this year that we haven’t done before. When we run it well, it’s pretty tough, but when you don’t, you give up some decent looks around the rim.”
