Lebo — With most of Lebo’s scoring gone from last season — mainly Adam Laflin — Lebo coach Doug Piper wasn’t really sure how his team would look this weekend at the Lebo tournament.
“We didn’t know ourselves,” Piper said. “We didn’t have an identity.”
For the second straight night, the Wolves seem to have figured out their roles quickly. Once again Lebo won handily on Friday night, beating Hartford 55-40.
Trevor White continued to develop his role as go-to scorer, leading the Wolves in scoring for the second straight night with 18.
Post players Thadd Barker and Brent Gould controlled the paint, combining for 19 points and 21 rebounds, and Devon Johnston played the role of steady ballhandler and secondary scorer on the perimeter. Johnston scored 11 points, had four assists and two steals.
“I was really concerned going into the season because we had like 12 points coming back,” Piper said, “and all the kids have done a nice job stepping up and understanding what their roles are and fitting into them.”
The Wolves also showed the patience of an experienced team in their execution against the Hartford zone defense. The Wolves had not even worked against a zone in practice, but they moved the ball and took advantage of the chances for offensive rebounds on second-chance points.
That was the case in the third quarter when Lebo pushed its lead from three up to as many as 16. Barker, who had a double-double with 10 points and 13 rebounds, had two putbacks during Lebo’s 19-6 run. Barker also scored on a jump hook in the lane, and Gould scored five points during the run, also getting a putback and making a runner off the glass while getting fouled.
“Early our big kids were just moving; they weren’t wanting the ball and calling for the ball,” Piper said. “That’s something we talked about at halftime, making sure you want the ball, and our guards did a nice job getting them the ball, and good things happen.”
Barker’s and Gould’s presence also opened things up for White, who made three rainbow 3-pointers. White’s misses even produce offense, because he has so much arc on his shot that Barker and Gould are always able to get in position to rebound if he misses.
“It’s pretty easy to be confident when you’ve got those guys underneath,” White said.
White scored 17 in Thursday night’s win against Madison and seems comfortable in the role of scorer.
“He’s doing a nice job. The thing that I like about him is he plays within the team,” Piper said. “He doesn’t go outside and try to do too much by himself. Everything that he does he gets from teammates and plays within the offense, and that’s what we ask of him.”
Adam Ewy led Hartford with 13 points and Colten Barrett and Michael Wilson both added nine. The Jaguars fell to 1-1 with the loss and play Madison today at 2:30 p.m.
Lebo (2-0) clinched the tournament championship with Friday’s win and will try to stay undefeated today at 5:30 p.m. against White City. White City has been blown out in both its games, so the Wolves should move to 3-0 tonight.
When asked about the strong start, White showed another trait of the intelligence and savvy the Wolves have shown in their first two games.
“I expected to do good, but we can’t look ahead of ourselves, because last year we won this tournament and then came out and lost two in a row,” White said. “We have to keep our heads up and not get too full of ourselves.”
Friday at Lebo
Lebo 55, Hartford 40
Hartford 10 15 9 6 — 40
Lebo 15 13 19 8 — 55
Hartford (1-1) — Ewy 13, Barrett 9, Wilson 9, Lingenfelter 1, Schwinghamer 4, Sliter 4.
Lebo (2-0) — Holmes 2, Gould 9, Robke 2, Johnston 11, Perry 3, Barker 10, White 18.
Comments
We allow registered users to post comments on this Web site. To learn more about our posting policies please read our User Poster Agreement Policy.
Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.