The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“We have to figure out how to keep ourselves out of a bad quarter”
by Than Acuff
Crested Butte Titans boys’ basketball coach Brandin Hamilton believes his team is closer than it’s ever been to shaking up the notoriously competitive Southern Peaks league. Each game provides a glimmer of what the team is capable of. Earlier in the season they showed they could reign from the perimeter. Then, they started finding some success on the inside. But Hamilton took a break from that to get his team’s defense dialed as his main concern was the Titans were just giving up too many points to stay competitive.
As a result, the Titans spent a majority of last week getting the defense dialed and pushing the pace during workouts, and while the end result proved positive, their offense suffered as they fell to the Sargent Farmers on Friday, December 18, 42-37.
“They had an awesome week of practice, working hard and pushing each other, and it showed. Our defense was great,” says Hamilton. “On the flip side though, we didn’t really work on our offense much and that showed, too. There was definitely some rust.”
The Titans opened the game against Sargent at Mach speed, setting the tone from the opening tip-off to build a quick 8-0 lead.
“We surprised them a little bit. We kind of just jumped on them,” says Hamilton.
The Farmers recovered from the initial onslaught to stem the Titan tide and pull back into the game over the remainder of the first half. Sargent tied the game up and then built a 24-18 lead by halftime, using heavy pressure on the ball to open up their offense.
“They took us out of our offensive rhythm and kept chipping away at us,” says Hamilton.
Then disaster struck. Mixing in a 1-2-2 press with a tough man-to-man defense, the Farmers stymied the Titans attack to build a 17-point lead at one point and eventually outscored Crested Butte 12-4 in the third quarter.
“They kept us from getting any efficient looks. Our offense had no identity,” says Hamilton.
Hamilton returned to full-court pressure to open the fourth quarter and the game turned back in Crested Butte’s favor as Sargent struggled and the Titans were scoring off of broken plays led by Noah Dumas, who scored six points in the fourth quarter.
“We just turned the tables pressure-wise and were controlling the tempo of the game with our press,” says Hamilton.
The Titans started to pull back into the game and were just five points down with the ball before time eventually ran out, leaving Crested Butte shy of another win.
“We had a furious comeback but just didn’t have enough in the tank to finish it off,” says Hamilton. “That seems to be the theme, we have one really bad quarter and that is the decider. We have to figure out how to keep ourselves out of a bad quarter.”
John Theis led the Titans against Sargent, dropping in 17 points with several coming from his work on the offensive boards.
“John had a breakout game, he battled all game long,” says Hamilton.
While Theis proved potent inside, the Titans needed additional offense from the team. No one else cracked double digits on offense, and Dumas was next in line with six points.
“Some guys that should be scorers are disappearing,” explains Hamilton. “We’ll use the break to reassess where people are playing and how to use them better.”
The Titans return to action after the Christmas break to face Center and Sanford January 8-9 and will play their first home games of the season January 15-16 against Telluride and Cripple Creek.
