Titans boys basketball heads into holidays hot

Comeback win over Telluride

by Than Acuff

The Crested Butte Titans boys basketball team headed into the holiday break on fire, grabbing a couple of hard-fought wins including a barn burner against the Telluride Miners on Saturday, December 21.

Crested Butte was hot off a win over Lake County the night before when a huge first quarter from the Titans eventually paced them to the win. The Telluride game was nearly the exact opposite and both games were true tests of the resolve of the Crested Butte squad.

Questions hung in the air as the Titans prepared for their game against the Miners. After having battled hard with Lake County the night before, would the Titans have enough in the tank to give Telluride a game?

“We looked lethargic from the big win the night before,” says coach Brandin Hamilton. “You could see it during warm-ups and during the pre-game.”

That lethargy seeped into the opening five minutes of the game and got worse as Telluride took the floor firing on all cylinders and jumping out to a 14-2 lead.

“They were on fire—they couldn’t have been hotter,” says Hamilton.

After the first timeout three minutes into the game did nothing to slow the Miners down, Hamilton called a second timeout two minutes later to see if he could stop the bleeding.

“I had to call the second timeout to change the tempo of the game and change things up a bit,” explains Hamilton. “I told the guys that Telluride would let them back in the game, they would just have to be patient.”

The Titans came out of the timeout with the “funky” zone defense that has worked so far this season and started to take the pace of the game back, running a more patient offense. The change played out immediately as they proceeded to rattle off 11 points in a row with Ethan Bacani scoring nine of them.

“The combination worked and we got it back to a close game and both teams settled in,” says Hamilton.

Erik Wasinger opened the second quarter with a three-pointer, Telluride fired back with the same and Wasinger responded with another three to pull Crested Butte to within one point. Wasinger continued to run the scoring for Crested Butte but Telluride answered back on each occasion until Alan Prieto had the last say, banking in a three-pointer at the buzzer for a 29-28 Titans’ lead.

“That was great,” says Hamilton. “You always feel a little better going into the locker room with a lead.”

While somewhat handcuffed by foul trouble, the Titans remained in full battle mode in the third quarter going toe-to-toe with Telluride. Each team traded buckets and when Wasinger scored, Grayson White spun inside for two and Carlos Franco stole a pass and tossed the ball to Wasinger for two more, the Titans were up 35-31 and looking to pull away.

The Miners refused to give in though and came back with a three-point play, but Crested Butte had the last say of the third quarter as Bacani hit an eight-foot jumper and dropped in a lay-up to put the Titans up 39-36 heading into the fourth quarter.

“We just stayed with our game and kept our same tempo on offense to score,” says Hamilton.

Crested Butte picked up where they left off to start the fourth quarter as Wasinger, Murphy Smith and Bacani all scored in the opening two minutes to build a 45-36 lead. Telluride made one last push to climb back into the game, cutting the Titans’ lead down to four with two minutes left, but Crested Butte remained composed. While foul trouble hampered the Titans somewhat, the Miners were forced to foul to stop the clock and Bacani kept knocking down free throws down the stretch to seal the 49-41 win. While Wasinger led the team with 19 points, Bacani was right there with him, scoring 17, including hitting 11 of 12 free throws in the game.

“Having Ethan at the free throw line gives us a big confidence boost,” says Hamilton. “I think our defense turned the tide and our offense functioned well.”

The two wins meant Crested Butte headed into the break 4-1 and full of confidence with plenty more to work on.

“We didn’t play great, clean basketball but we played with resilience,” says Hamilton. “They’ve proven to be a competitive group that figures out how to win games and it’s nice to come out of those non-league early-season games with some confidence. We got some wins that we were able to take some lessons from as well.”

Crested Butte has the next week off but will return to competition on January 10 when they head to Ridgway to face the Demons.