Five Takeaways: Goodpasture Christian-Columbia Academy
Tuesday night Goodpasture Christian dispatched of a feisty Columbia Academy squad, 52-49. The scoring started slowly for the hosts. Goodpasture leaned on their leading scorer Tripp McEachern early and stumbled to the final horn, fighting off a surging Bulldog unit.
Tripp McEachern can Shoot
The visiting Goodpasture Christian Cougars played patiently on offense and Tripp McEachern dominated the touches early, scoring the team’s first 10 points.
Considering his style of play Tripp could run more off the ball. His coach does a great job of creating plays and shooting windows for the senior scorer. Tripp has an array of fades, pump fakes, and drives.
McEachern is a volume scorer that reminds of Adam Morrison. He doesn’t leap out of the building, but he does make every shot a high-percentage attempt. Tripp’s subtle feigns are probably the result of evolution. When you can shoot and want to knock down shots, then you find any way to get those shots off. His smoothness with the basketball is impressive.
“He is a good player and he was tough to handle tonight for sure,” said Columbia Academy Head Coach Marty DeJarnette. “We had multiple guys on him, but he still scored a bit.”
Columbia Slacks on Glass
The first quarter was all Tripp, but Goodpasture opened up their third quarter margin with offensive rebounds and second chances. The Bulldogs played with fire when pressing. They did not wrangle many defensive rebounds though. Goodpasture boasted a little size advantage, but also the Cougars clawed on the weakside after errant shots.
It took a large fourth quarter push for Columbia Academy to make the game competitive late.
Goodpasture is comfortable holding the ball until the horn. Charge Tripp. Answer 3 for Carson Cary. 48-42 Goodpasture 1:55 left in 4Q.
— PrepHoopsTennessee (@PrepHoopsTN) December 13, 2017
Many of the misses from earlier found a home in the final few minutes. Class of 2019 G Carson Cary buried two three-pointers in the fourth quarter. He finished with 17 points to lead the Bulldogs in scoring.
Success in Coaching
The ultimate goal of an athletics coach is putting their players in a situation to succeed. You can extrapolate this to the broader meaning of life, but for now focus on the sport of basketball.
Within two minutes everybody in the gym knew Tripp McEachern was the best scorer. But being the best scorer is not enough. Nobody is going to grant you those points automatically. In fact, Coumbia Academy did well to limit the senior’s touches and they did make some of his shots more challenging than he would prefer.
The credit for Tripp’s 29 points belongs to Tripp obviously, his teammates a little, and mostly his coach. So many plays were designed to get McEachern the ball in dangerous locations.
Whether it be a high screen to get McEachern running “downhill” into the lane or feeding him from a high-low against a smaller defender. Goodpasture Head Coach Adam Sonn really created some nice scenarios and Tripp capitalized most of the night. He didn’t really miss any shots he should have made, save one late free throw.
It was a potentially costly miss though, and the split pair enabled Walker Galbraith to take a buzzer-beating attempt to tie.
TUESDAY: Goodpasture Columbia Academy last 90 secs https://t.co/9PEf7w0QPD
— PrepHoopsTennessee (@PrepHoopsTN) December 14, 2017
The Bulldog did miss and Tripp’s squad carried on undefeated.
Columbia Academy Pressure
The Bulldogs of Columbia Academy really come at you. Goodpasture clearly felt rattled in spurts. Columbia’s pressure came constantly, but when they missed shots obviously it was nearly impossible to set the pressure.
We attacked them pretty well early and we tried to get their pace up, which I thought we did,” said Columbia Academy Head Coach Marty DeJarnette. “And I thought they got a little tired there also. It is just conditioning. I think one of the things you see is attacking the offensive boards. We didn’t really have the energy to attack the boards like we wanted to, like we needed to to get a win tonight.”
The Bulldogs did not create many problems most of the game. There were patches Goodpasture Christian struggled in the first quarter.
Goodpasture Solution
“We were preparing for a 2-2-1 if they pressed,” said Goodpasture Head Coach Adam Sonn. “When they started jumping us in different parts of the floor, after just taking just one or two possessions to get used to it, and realizing that became a reality we just kept the ball middle and then play numbers and make them pay.”
Most of the easiest Cougar scores resulted from press breaks.
“It surprised us a little bit, probably with a little bit of fatigue early on too,” said Coach Sonn. “Both teams kind of seemed gassed at the end of the first, start of the second, just getting up and down the floor.”
Coach Sonn labels the last five minutes of the game as “winning time.”
For the most part, Goodpasture handled the late pressure. They did commit a few turnovers, but making the free throws and challenging without fouling always work for teams with a lead. The Cougars got to that finish line and continued their season without a single blemish.