Broncos win 3 of 4 in Morro Bay boys basketball tournament

Coach Tim May’s varsity boys basketball team won three of four games in the weekend Morro Bay High School Tournament, dropping only a 59-57 overtime loss to North Bakersfield on Saturday afternoon.

On Thursday, Dec. 1, Coast beat the Templeton Eagles, 48-33. Jez Lawson led the scoring with 14 points and grabbed 12 rebounds. Jack MacKinnon and Auggie Johnson each tallied 10 points, and MacKinnon nabbed nine rebounds.

Friday’s tournament game against Bethel Baptist was a forfeit (Bethel didn’t show up), so Coast took a 2-0 win in that one. On Saturday morning, Dec. 3, the Broncos won a thriller from the Mission Oak High School Hawks (from Tulare), 45-41. A last-second 3-pointer by Johnson sealed the win.

Lawson led Coast’s scoring (16 points) against the Hawks, and his six rebounds tied him with Riley Kennedy and Jack MacKinnon for the team lead. Johnson scored 12 after sinking four of nine 3-pointers.

Saturday afternoon, Dec. 3, Coast’s eight players went up against North Bakersfield’s roster of 16, and despite Johnson’s 25 points (he was 4-of-9 on 3-pointers), and Lawson’s 12 points (and team-leading seven rebounds), it came down to two missed free throws with two seconds left in overtime, preserving North’s lead.

Coach May dislikes having to play two games in a single day during the regular season.

“It is incredibly taxing physically and mentally” for a team with just eight players to play back-to-back games, he said — albeit he isn’t using that as an excuse for the loss to North Bakersfield.

After that nerve-racking loss, the team’s mood was “subdued,” May wrote in an email interview. “But I reminded them how fickle sports are … you win one game at the buzzer and lose another at the buzzer” on the same day, and that’s daunting. Still, the coach believes his team is “in a good place to start the season.”

The Broncos need to work on getting the ball up the court when there’s heavy pressure from the defense, May explained. On Saturday against the Hawks and Stars, Coast faced constant pressure in a half-court situation.

“We need to get better” at moving the ball up the court, May said. “We are just holding on to the ball too long and not making the easy pass.”

On the other hand, May noted that there can be an advantage to being pressured by two or three defenders when a Bronco is bringing the ball up court. That, of course, leaves fewer defenders near the basket, so “if we make the right, easy pass to the open man,” that pressure can create a scoring opportunity.

On Thursday, Dec. 8, May’s squad travels to Ojai to participate in the Laguna Blanca High School Tournament. Most of the eight schools in the tourney are in Coast’s division (5A), so the coach sees these games as “really important” when it comes to rankings at the end of the season.

May’s team is an “unselfish” group that likes to pass to open players — “sometimes to a fault” — albeit there are players who have the proverbial green light to shoot when there’s an open shot.

Shot selection is “tricky at times,” May continued, but these student athletes have played basketball together for a long time, and they generally have a sense about when a shot should be taken and when a pass is more appropriate.

Junior varsity

After Coast’s JV basketball team won its first game of the season against the San Luis Obispo Classical Academy Grizzlies, 44-26 on Tuesday, Nov. 29, the two teams had a re-match at Cuesta College on Thursday, Dec. 1.

The JV Broncos trailed 13-10 early. But Coast came out on fire in the second half, thanks to what coach Michael McAvoy said was “a wake-up call during halftime.”

The JV team tallied 28 points after the break to top the Grizzlies, 38-22.

This story was originally published December 7, 2016 at 10:02 AM with the headline "Broncos win 3 of 4 in Morro Bay boys basketball tournament."