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Under Control: Allen takes care of ball, West to assume sole possession of second place
BY Kevin Hageland, khageland@starlocalnews.com
PLANO -- The Allen boys basketball team (4-1 in district) turned the ball over with 34 seconds remaining in Friday night's game against Plano West (3-2).
It was a notable moment as that was just the eighth time the Eagles had turned it over in a 75-64 victory to close the first half of 10-5A play.
"When you get good shots off and value the ball, then good things are going to happen," said Jeff McCullough, Allen head coach. "Going in we felt like we could get some stuff going in transition, but only if we were able to take care of the ball, play good defense and get good rebounding."
Holding a 31-28 lead, Allen scored seven points in the span of 45 seconds with each bucket consisting of a rebound, outlet pass and easy hoop. Junior Myron Fisher, who scored 10 points and had eight rebounds, got the run going to give the Eagles a 38-28 advantage and force a Wolves' timeout.
But West wouldn't be run out of the gym.
"We got right in there during the timeout and said, 'this is what we've got to do,'" said Anthony Morgan, West head coach. "Sometimes, especially with a young team, it's all about mapping out the sequence of events so you can make sure that translates to the court."
The Wolves responded with eight straight points.
Senior Zack Levick, who scored eight, made a steal and basket to get the run started with sophomores Soso Jamabo and DJ Hogg quickly following up. Jamabo, who accounted for 15 points and nine boards, dropped in an and-1 before Hogg, who tallied 19 points and nine rebounds, buried a 3-pointer to pull the home team within 38-36.
But Allen has its own highly-touted sophomore.
And Olin Carter, who finished with 16 points and five boards after being held scoreless in the first half, responded by scoring the next eight Allen points to get his team's lead back to 52-46 by the end of the third quarter. Carter continued to attack in the fourth, sinking four straight free throws to give the Eagles their largest lead at 62-48.
"Olin got a little more aggressive in the second half," McCullough said. "I think he heard so much about [Hogg] and [Jamabo] being great sophomore players, and don't get me wrong, they are, but I think he took that a little personal."
The closest West got from there was 66-58 after a 3-pointer from senior AJ Lozano, who scored 10 points.
"I think once we got that lead up around eight or 10 points, we were able to make West do some stuff they didn't want to do," McCullough said. "They don't have a lot of depth and we were really able to make them work."
That work was a little more than West could handle on defense.
"We can talk about plenty of things from this game, but the bottom line is they were making shots," Morgan said. "Credit to Allen for knocking them down, but a lot of those shots were uncontested because our defense wasn't where it needed to be and we just talked about that with the guys.
"We've got to contest those shots."
That trend began in the second quarter as Allen junior Blake Williams, who scored six, and Fisher made back-to-back 3-pointers to give Allen a 19-15 lead it wouldn't relinquish. The Eagles also held an 11-9 edge after one quarter thanks to back-to-back baskets from Joe Miller, who put up seven points and five boards.
Miller was one of seven Allen players to score at least six with senior Cameron Epps (six points), who was also a nightmare for West on dribble penetration, Jackie Davis (13 points) and senior Tay Evans (11 points, seven rebounds) also reaching or surpassing that plateau in the Eagles' 75-64 victory.
Allen started the second half of district Tuesday by edging McKinney Boyd, 61-59, in double overtime. Carter and Epps supplied the ammunition by scoring 19 and 18 points, respectively, to improve the Eagles to 5-1 in 10-5A.
Allen returns to action Friday at 7:30 p.m. when it hosts McKinney.
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