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ONLY ONE WAY TO GO…UP!

Posted by | January 15, 2012 .

They say losing is contagious. After announcing the Port Huron High Big Reds’ last basketball game on Friday Night vs. the Utica Stevenson Titans I think perhaps there’s something to that thought. It wasn’t that long ago that the Big Reds were celebrating their Ed Peltz Tournament Championship and a 3 game winning streak. Unfortunately, all good things have to come to an end. The last 3 games have been anything but a good thing as PH has been blown out by Fitzgerald (72-42), Madison (72-50) and now Stevenson. Even though Friday’s 58-43 loss wasn’t as bad as the previous 2, a loss is still a loss. So what is the answer to bring the Big Reds out of this funk? First things first! Here’s how THE BIG D saw Friday’s contest…

Just like the last game I called (PHN vs. Roseville) where the Huskies came out flat, the Big Reds looked just as rough in this one, throwing the ball away, losing the ball in the open court and simply missing easy baskets. Not only that but I thought the defensive effort was a little shaky right off the hop.  It was strong 3-point perimeter shooting by the Titans from the beginning that the Big Reds never really recovered from in the end. Oddly enough, Titans’ Center – Kevin Mornan was draining 3’s in the early going. I remember making a note about how strong his shooting was considering he was popping them over PH Big Man – Alex Zmolik. Not an easy task. It was the even stronger 3-point shooting by Titan Point Guard – Brandon Hughes that absolutely buried the Big Reds. It seemed like every single time PH was bringing themselves out of this rut…here was Hughes to either answer it with an outside hoop. The Titans showed an excellent inside/outside game on this night and the Big Reds simply couldn’t counter it for 32 minutes.

The Titans scored the first 12 points of the game. It was answered by two quick three’s from Big Red Guard – Everette Boone but the 12-6 score would be as close as the Big Reds would get throughout the entire game. Another big key was how well Stevenson shut down Alex Zmolik. As he demonstrated in the Marysville game earlier in the season, Zmolik is more then capable of having a monster performance. Alex owned the Vikings, scoring 26 points and 11 rebounds. That was then and this is now though and the Titans had to walk away proud of their defensive effort on this night to hold Zmolik to just 9. In fact, Zmolik, Boone and Jalen Esters each scored 9 for the Big Reds. No one else exceeded that on this night. I liked the effort that Jalen Esters gave Port Huron in this game. I think with Esters checking in every game as the 6th man off the bench, it gives the Big Reds extra momentum. From what I saw, Esters is a definite game changer with a ton of hussle, aggressive defense and pretty strong transition play. The trouble is, Esters couldn’t buy a basket in this game. He had a ton of great looks…he just had a lot of bad luck. Everette Boone also had a lot of open looks in this game. It just wasn’t meant to be for a Big Red team that needs to figure out how to get out of this rut and in a hurry.

Was it the fact that the Big Reds were picked as the #1 rated team in the area by the Port Huron Times Herald to start the season? Did the early season success go to their heads? Did they get overconfident? Were things coming too easy? Just as losing is contagious, winning can sometimes feel that way when everything is going your way but when it swings, sometimes it can swing BIG and that’s exactly what’s going on now with this Big Reds squad. Ever since winning the Ed Peltz Tournament, the Big Reds haven’t won a basketball game. They haven’t even been close. Is it coincidence? Maybe, but there’s only one way to pull out of this mess and that’s to bring yourself out of it. The Big Reds fall to 3-4 overall and more importantly, 0-3 in the MAC BLUE. There’s plenty of time to turn this around but in my opinion, THAT TIME IS NOW! Yes indeed, at this point the MAC BLUE doesn’t fear RED very much … YET! -D

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