Northwest @ Clay 12/4

[my2cents]

Clay had no answer for Hank Leslie tonight. Even when they doubled up on him he spun to the right, went to the baseline and layed it up. He led all scorers with 28 points. Crabtree got hot late in the game and ended up with 24. The biggest difference in the stats tonight were turnovers and foul shots. NW hit 20 of 29 to Clay's 2 of 13 from the charity stripe for an 18 point difference. Clay had 24 TO's (many unforced) to NW 7. If you give away -17 on TO's and 18 point margin on FT, you will lose 75 to 45 every time. Rebounds were about even at 28 - 26 and each team hit 5 threes. (Stat unofficial from radio)
Clay was led by Lawson, Bussler and Burchett with 11, 11 and 8 pts. Clay played with NW thru most of the first quarter but at 12 - 10 they just fell apart at the end of the quarter and the score went to 17 - 10 and they never got back in it. One thing I don't understand, and it has been mentioned on here a few times, is why Coach T insist on running the man to man full court press that produces nothing but points for the other team. It doesn't attempt to trap the ball and doesn't appear to even slow the ball down coming up the court. What it did do tonight is give up 5 or 6 long pass lay-ups. It seems if Clay wants to press they should zone press, but then Clay almost never plays zone defense, and the results show on the scoreboard.
NW was hitting on all cylinders tonight, but Clay is a much better team than what we saw tonight. Hopefully the can rebound get things on track tomorrow night at SW. Tuesday at Minford will be tough. Next Friday they will finally be in SOC I match-ups and we will get a look at how they are going to compete in their division.

[claypantherfan]

Tonight I dont think at all Clay played like they could at all but tomorrow is a new day and a new game to get prepared for

[Ex-Huddler]

I didn't get to make it to the game tonight but listened to it on the radio. It sounded like NW used the inside out game of Leslie/Crabtree well. That is what it will take for them to win. It was mentioned above about a lot of unforced turnovers for Clay. The radio guys praised the work of the NW defense. They mentioned Kenny Crabtree playing well underneath and Frantz just tormenting the heck out of the Clay offense, forcing many turnovers and having a few steals. If this team continues to play team ball and listen to their coaches, they should do fine. Or they could listen to "Mohawk" and stop feeding Leslie the ball and go downhill fast.

[Waterdog]

Tonights game was disappointing for Clay. The boys need to play ZONE. It is hard to understand why the coach won't do it, but it has been this way for 3 years now. Parents and kids from the stands were yelling to the coach to play ZONE. I think he must be in a zone of his own. ( the Twilight Zone)
Northwest had hot hands and good moves. Let's hope tonight is an improvemnet.

[candystore]

I see clay winning this one in a very close one and it wont be the same as last year alot better team all the way around

i love the boys that play for clay....but they were alot worse

[my2cents]

Last years Clay team was no where close to this years team. They only real starter they lost was T J Mershon and they picked up Delotel and Porter and the four starting Sophs from last year are all Juniors now.