The562’s coverage of Long Beach Wilson Athletics is sponsored by Joel Bitonio, Class of 2009
The562’s coverage of Lakewood Athletics is sponsored by J.P. Crawford, Class of 2013
The Wilson Bruins headed up north for a Moore League showdown at Lakewood Thursday evening, but it was the Lancers who pulled away early to win it 60-39.
Lakewood’s double-digit win puts them at 2-0 through their early Moore League schedule, but they feel as if they’ve yet to play their best basketball.
“We haven’t played our best, and we still won,” said Lakewood coach Duane Cooper after the game. “That’s the positive thing, that we played how we played and we still pulled it out with a win. The negative thing is that we just haven’t played as well as any of us feel we can. So when we get it all together it’s going to be a beautiful thing.”
Though the score reads a 21-point win for the Lancers, Lakewood struggled with turning the ball over and giving up too many second chance opportunities.
“It looks a lot worse than it actually was, it didn’t feel like a 20 point win,” said Cooper. “I don’t think that we played our best on defense. We were late on a lot of things today and to me we never got to our real defensive mode that we can get into, so we allowed them to get comfortable early on. We don’t want anyone to get comfortable, that’s the main thing.”
“I think we could’ve had a 30 point lead if we would have had less turnovers,” said Lakewood guard Anthony Williams. “Those turnovers allowed them to get easy buckets and easy layups.”
The Lancers gave away the ball eight times, but made up for it on the other end by forcing 12 Bruin turnovers themselves. Lakewood was able to cash in on a few turnovers from quick fast break points, with Williams running the floor finding most of his game-high 15 points off of turnovers.
“I think our pressure gets teams riled up,” said Williams. “It gets their minds going quickly and speeds them up which leads them to making passes they usually don’t make and turnovers they usually don’t give up. That works to our advantage to get steals and layups. If we keep doing that no team can mess with us.”
Even through the Lancers’ pressure the Bruins hung in with Lakewood as they found themselves trailing by single digits up until the third quarter. But in the fourth quarter Lakewood’s tough full-court press began to break down on them, keeping them away from striking distance until the final whistle.
“They played with toughness that we just didn’t have tonight,” said Wilson coach James Boykin. “Their overall toughness and physicality tonight, there’s where the game was won. We had too many turnovers, gave up offensive rebounds, and didn’t make free throws. If you’re gonna do all that stuff then it’s a recipe for buttkicking.”
Wilson will round out 2023 with a tournament on the 27th, before resuming Moore League play Jan. 10 against Jordan.
“We have a gritty group and they have confidence, so they won’t waver,” said Boykin. “They compete and they play hard, like tonight they played hard but it was our mistakes that lost us the game. I know they’ll always play hard so we’ll just need to show up and be tougher and stronger with the basketball.”
As for Lakewood, even after their big win they’ll continue to keep working before they resume their league play against Compton on Jan. 8.
“We’re gonna come to practice and continue to put in the same work,” said Williams. “We can’t settle. We’re always worried about our next games because the job’s never finished.”
