Thanks to an unrelenting defense, the Patriots turned a sluggish start into a 94-72 rout of Tidewater Community College on Saturday at Stone Hall.
“It was our defense,” said PHCC head coach Kenny Wade of the early comeback. “It was a variation of all of it, the trapping, the rotation, the talking, they became a little livelier. That’s what started that run. Defense started to trigger the run.”
Down by as many as eight points in the early minutes of the game, the Patriots (5-2 overall, 1-1 Region X) took a timeout and stepped back on the court with renewed vigor.
“I had to light a fire under them,” said Wade after trailing early. “A few words here and there, and that’s what got it going. ...”
Whatever he said, it did the trick.
“We just had to pick it up,” said Taneiko Robinson. “We weren’t playing hard at the beginning of the game. Coach (Wade) had to get on us on the timeout. ...”
After the PHCC timeout, the Patriots rattled off six straight points to tie it up at 18 on a bank in the paint from Anthony Jones and just kept on going.
“We want to focus on defense; that’s going to get us easy buckets,” said the Patriots’ Ross Williams. “We don’t have to run too much offense when our defense is working, so we try to throw different defenses and pressure the ball at all times.”
Williams had 20 points and 10 assists on the day.
Following the tying bank, the Patriots rattled off 26 points while holding the Storm to eight, thanks in part to a variety of full- and half-court defensive looks. At the half, PHCC had a 44-26 lead over Tidewater (2-5 overall).
“The traps was pretty much key to that cause they had a lot of turnovers off the traps, and we capitalized on their turnovers and made shots,” said Robinson of the turnaround.
“That’s probably the main reason we won the game, ’cause if we didn’t have our defensive pressure, the full-court traps, and stuff like that who knows how it would’ve turned out,” he added.
Robinson finished the night with a double-double as he recorded 12 points and 10 rebounds.
After gaining the lead midway through the first half, the Patriots never looked back while increasing their lead to as many as 27 points (72-45) in the second half.
“We started out well. After coach Wade made some adjustments our defense wasn’t working as well, but I think if our guys had committed to it we still could’ve held ’em down and stayed in the game,” said Storm coach Edward McInnis.
“Coach Wade’s doing a wonderful job with them,” he added. “I think they’re coming to see us and hopefully we’ll be a lot better.”
Wade said that a fourth of the way through the season he’s seeing continued progress in the Patriots’ level of play, and that, “If we keep moving forward each da,y we’re going to turn into a pretty good basketball team.”
Josh McGill had four steals, 10 rebounds and 16 points for the Patriots, and Darius Echols added four steals, five assists and eight points.
Tidewater was led by Byron Carpenter’s game-high 29 points. Antoine Bradley added 17 points, and Austin Whitehorne had eight.
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