Guard Dallion Johnson ’20 has been Captain of Andover Boys Basketball since his Lower year.
After losing a tough game to Cushing the week before, Andover was able to step up and compete, according to Head Coach Terrell Ivory ’00.
“Overall, I think it was just a good bounce back from a tough loss [last week]. Obviously, the team is really competitive and they want to win games, but coming back from something like that can be challenging. Going on the run and being able to beat a Class A opponent was a big accomplishment for us,” said Ivory.
In contrast to its past game, the team played as a unit, distributing the ball while still allowing its main scorers to score double digits, according to Johnson.
Johnson said, “We tried to work on our plays a lot and [we tried] to get that movement and a nice flowing offense… We tried to share the ball a lot and it worked out for us so we’re going to keep trying to work on that.”
According to Ivory, the team’s energy and work ethic are more important than the outcome of the game.
“The loss to Cushing didn’t bother me as much as the fact that we didn’t play hard, our effort wasn’t there. I thought that our effort was a little bit better [against Tabor], but the team that we played today wasn’t as talented as Cushing,” said Ivory.
Noah Dinkins PG’20 brought much-needed energy against Tabor, helping to secure the team’s win, according to Johnson.
“Every game Noah comes with this energy and when he gets going, he doesn’t want to lose. He hates losing and he just wants to compete. He’ll do anything to win [and] he makes a lot of hustle plays,” said Johnson.
Moving forward, the team looks to improve its help defense, according to Ivory and Johnson.
Ivory said, “Defensively, it’s one thing to guard your own person, but we need to be better at helping on defense. If an offensive player beats the primary defender, we need someone to step in and help. Obviously we’re not perfect, so we’re going to get beat sometimes so being able to have the confidence that your teammates will have your back defensively really helps.”
Johnson added, “I’d say that [we need to improve on] locking in our defense because we still let up a lot of easy points. We have to play better defense and really focus, communicate, and work better as a team.”
Andover will travel to Worcester Academy this Friday.
