Saturday 2/10 – Andover: 59, Williston: 62
Monday 2/12 – Andover: 80, Noble and Greenough: 57
Wednesday 2/14 – Andover: , St. Paul’s:
Boys Basketball (8-7) *add weds game* made an admirable effort against Williston Northampton (Williston) on Saturday. The team was able to build up to a 59-59 tie against Williston, though ultimately fell three points short. On Monday, the team traveled to Noble and Greenough (Nobles) and returned with a win. On Wednesday, the team fell to St. Paul’s. Boys Basketball has only one game remaining before the annual Andover/Exeter game.
On Saturday, the team worked hard to adapt to Williston’s big zone defense. When Boys Basketball’s original offensive plan wasn’t working, Head Coach Terrell Ivory ’00 decided to switch up the play midway through the game, which allowed the team to recover with a score of 59-59, before Williston scored an additional three points.
“We had to make some adjustments because what we were originally doing wasn’t necessarily working and when we called the timeout, they easily ran into the new play and did a really good job of executing it on the fly. So they did that multiple times and it ended up helping us out a lot in the second half,” said Coach Ivory.
At Williston, Coach Ivory shared the team’s developing new offensive strategy, where players aim to create shooting opportunities for not just themselves, but others too.
“It’s more of this idea of team-oriented offense and not necessarily relying on one individual to create shots for themselves and allowing the team to create shots for good opportunities, instead of one person trying to create opportunities for themselves,” said Coach Ivory.
On Monday, the team secured a win against Nobles. Rashad McCormick PG’24 highlighted Adam Landry PG’24’s performance on the court.
“It was a good refreshing game to have with the team. Everybody had fun… I would say Adam Landry [played well], he was pretty impressive that game. I think he had like he was three for three… He was probably one of the best,” said McCormick.
On Wednesday, Boys Basketball fell to St. Paul’s. According to Co-Captain Keenan Sparks ’24, the team went into its game on Wednesday having prepared beforehand by analyzing film from the other team, practicing against Nobles’ defensive plays, and polishing their offensive strategies.
“In practice, we do a lot of defensive drills with just a big emphasis on communication, and offensively there’s been a real emphasis on moving the ball around a lot, and trying to minimize our dribbles. We usually watch films of the other team, which is helpful to know their plays and what they do on defense and how we can attack that offensively. Then in practice, we run through their plays,” said Sparks.
On Wednesday, Boys Basketball fell to St. Paul’s, and according to Sparks, the team’s performance against St. Paul’s didn’t produce the result that the team had hoped for.
“We never really got going offensively. They were a pretty tall team and crashed the offensive glass a lot. Sometimes, we just had mental lapses or we didn’t communicate on defense. Offensively, we had some careless turnovers,” said Sparks.
Coach Ivory hopes to build off of the work the team has done so far this season. He puts an emphasis on the importance of honing in on specific offensive skills.
“We’ve worked hard this year to build good habits and continue to get our team defense better. So, we’ll work on that and some adjustments to our offense. We’ve got to be making multiple passes in a possession and get great shots, not necessarily good shots, and definitely no bad shots,” said Coach Ivory.
Boys Basketball will play at home against Belmont Hill on Saturday.
