The562’s coverage of Long Beach Poly is sponsored by Bryson Financial.
The562’s coverage of Long Beach Wilson Athletics is sponsored by Joel Bitonio, Class of 2009.
After the opening eight minutes, it looked like the visiting Wilson Bruins might be ready to give Long Beach Poly a challenge in their home opener at Ron Palmer Pavilion. But that’s about the time when Poly’s defense completely took the game over, shutting down the visiting Bruins on their way to a dominant 68-36 victory on Wednesday night.
Wilson led for most of the opening quarter, with the Jackrabbits taking their first lead, 20-19, in the final minute of the first. Poly never looked back, using an eye-popping 38-3 run to quickly put the game out reach.
“I told them 19 points was too many points in the first quarter,” said Poly head coach Shelton Diggs, who celebrated his birthday with a win. “We like to keep teams under 13 if we can. So we kind of switched it up in the second quarter–went zone, man, just switched it up and that made them think a little bit more. It took them out of their rhythm, and we did a really good job.”
The Poly defense allowed just two made field goals across more than 21 minutes of game time on Wednesday, giving up only six points combined in quarters two and three.
While the defense dominated the action, senior Jovani Ruff got the offense going with 16 of his game-high 21 points coming in the first half. Ruff was 8/13 from the floor and joined the rest of Poly’s starters on the bench for the entire fourth quarter.
“I’m really proud of my guys,” said Ruff. “We’re a defensive school, we just started off slow, it was our first home game, so we were excited. But after the first quarter, coach told us to lock back in, and it showed.”
Austin Unegbu added 15 points for the Jackrabbits, and junior big man Jonas Oware played a big part as well, despite scoring just four points. Oware had five blocks and 13 rebounds to anchor the Poly defense down low.
“Jonas was huge. I’ve been on him about not letting people just score over him without any determination to stop it,” said Diggs of Oware, who has really come into his own this season. “He’s a good kid, man. He listened to what we tried to say, and he was beating stuff up today. I was happy for him.”
Diggs said he was pleased with how well his starters played together, and 10 different Jackrabbits hit the scoresheet in Wednesday’s win. The Jackrabbits have performed well against a difficult non-league schedule so far, and they’ve opened their Moore League slate with two blowout wins over playoff teams from a season ago.
“This is the closest team I’ve been on in my whole four years here,” said Ruff. “We hang with each other on and off the court, so the chemistry is just natural.”
Wilson got a nice showing from sophomore center Andre Alvarez-Smith, who had eight of his team-high 10 points in the opening quarter. Senior Nathaniel Parris had a pair of threes on his way to nine points for the Bruins.
Led by Aware’s 6-foot-9 frame, the Jackrabbits put up double-digit blocks as a team, challenging the Bruins inside without fouling. Blocked shots could be something to watch for the Jackrabbits the rest of the season, thanks to former Jackrabbit Jordan Bell, who has recently started working with the team as an assistant coach. Bell was an elite shotblocker in high school before going on to a solid NBA career, most notably as an NBA champion with the Golden State Warriors.
“It’s good to have him come in and help, and show Jonas some of the tricks of the trade,” said Diggs of having Bell back with the program. “He just started helping us out this week, so as we continue to keep going with it, it’s great having him around. I mean, he’s an NBA champ.”
The Jackrabbits will host Compton on Friday night, while Wilson hosts Lakewood the same night, looking to stay near the top of the league standings.
