Titan boys basketball fall to illness and Telluride Miners

Illness runs rampant through team

The Crested Butte Community School was hit with a crushing illness that hit both the boys and girls basketball teams just as they were preparing for their games against the Telluride Miners on Friday, December 19. It got so bad that it made its way down to Telluride as well, forcing the girls game to be cancelled. The boys, on the other hand, persevered and made their way to Telluride, albeit quite a bit shorthanded.
Coach Brandin Hamilton lost a total of five players, including three starters due to the onset of the pre-holiday malady, leaving him to call on a couple of players to step into pivotal roles in the varsity rotation.
“We definitely practiced without those starters in there and the guys that were going to play got in some reps,” says Hamilton. “But we were missing our two best perimeter defenders and if you don’t have certain key guys in there, things are going to look different.”
Initially, Hamilton felt that his team would size up well against the Miners even with his ranks depleted, and continued his optimism leading into the game with the Miners.
“I still wanted to win and I still felt like we could,” says Hamilton. “We had an advantage inside for sure.”
Defense proved the name of the game through the first quarter. With little bench to work with, Hamilton had his team in a 2-3 zone on defense and held back from pushing the pace, hoping to slow the game down. The plan worked for the most part as Crested Butte was behind 3-2 with a minute left in the first quarter and finished the quarter behind 6-2.
“We were cold and they did a good job of taking Quinn [Winter] away,” says Hamilton. “Defensively, we looked pretty good.”
 Then things started to fall apart for the inexperienced Titans team as Telluride pressed the Titans on every possession and outscored Crested Butte 18-7 in the second quarter to build a 24-9 lead.
“We just got too predictable offensively,” says Hamilton. “Even when we broke the press we couldn’t get any lay-ups out of it and every time Quinn touched the ball, there were three guys on him.”
Despite the massive deficit, Hamilton worked at halftime trying to keep the team’s confidence high and pointing out the opportunities for his team offensively.
“I just tried to instill confidence that their press wasn’t a big deal and drew up some adjustments to our half-court offense,” explains Hamilton.
Crested Butte found some rhythm in the opening minutes of the third quarter and managed to cut into Telluride’s lead.
“We got a little bit of a flow going but it was just too tough to recover,” says Hamilton.
By the middle of the fourth quarter, the Titans were down by 20 points and Hamilton took the opportunity to work on getting players varsity time rather than trying to claw back into the game, as Crested Butte eventually fell 56-27.
“We did our best to try to compete. We were just low on guys,” says Hamilton. “I was really proud of them.”
With a record of 1-5, it would be easy to get discouraged, especially with league play about to begin. But Hamilton keeps it all in perspective and knows that there is hope.
“We’ve only been healthy for one game and that was the game we won,” says Hamilton. “It’s put a lot of guys in situations they’re not used to so it’s been a good experience for a lot of them on an individual level.”
Hamilton does point out the flip side to the situation though, recognizing that without a consistent starting lineup, the team has yet to gel.
“We don’t really have an identity yet,” says Hamilton.
The team will continue with workouts over the holidays and Hamilton will use the time to continue efforts on the individual level until he has the team back to full strength.
“We’re still a little thin but the guys who are here are going to work on individual skills,” says Hamilton.
The Titans will return to action on Friday, January 9 when they host the Center Vikings in Mt. Olympus for their first league game of the season.