Brookwood defeat Terrell, 14-2 Warriors still “not content” with play

The Brookwood Warriors improved to 14-2 on the season and 2-0 in region on January 10 as they took down the Terrell Academy Eagles The Warriors secured a ten point victory over Terrell, winning 61-51. With only two losses on the season, both to public schools, one would be forgiven for thinking everyone in Brookwood’s locker room is smiling. However, the Warriors have maintained a high standard for themselves and winning isn’t always good enough. Often times it’s the way you win that matters.

“Obviously, we’re winning and we want to do that, but I don’t think that we are hitting our maximum efficiency level,” said head coach Nate Van-Duyne. “So, we’re winning but I don’t know that any of us inside the locker room feel real good about how we’re winning.”

There are two main issues VanDuyne sighted for the lack on contentment surrounding the team’s play. The first is rebounding.

According to VanDuyne, Brookwood is 14-2 in the shooting battle, 10-6 in the turnover battle, but they are 7-9, losing the rebounding battle. This means they are outshooting everyone and taking care of the ball, but being beat on the boards. Allowing a team to dominate you on the boards gives them an easy way back into the game. Second chance points are big in any level of basketball, but especially in high school.

“I’m really frustrated with that because, obviously, within our association when you’ve got a 6’9 kid plus a kid the caliber of Roscoe (Jones) I just feel like those are two built in advantages that you have,” VanDuyne said. “I feel like we should beat a lot of teams on the boards and we’re just not. Our level of physicality has to get better, our pursuit of the basketball has to get better.”

It is sometimes a complicated issue for coaches to correct things during the later stages of the season. Region play is tough and you can only go so hard in practice before your team is too tired to win games. It’s a fine line that Van-Duyne is working hard not to cross.

“You can only beat each other up so much to where it starts to take a toll on your body,” VanDuyne said. “We’ve got to figure out how to get better at it without having that negative impact of someone getting hurt or just being overly beat up and fatigued.”

The other issue is more mental. Despite the rebounding issue, Brookwood is a very good team. They rode a nine game win streak to start the season, beating multiple public schools along the way, including an extremely tight game with Thomasville. But, when you’re good it’s easy to lookover other teams who may not be up to par.

“I think we believe and I think that others view us as one of the top teams in the region,” VanDuyne said. “So, I think that we’re getting a lot of teams best shot every night. I think there’s times where right now we’re kind of looking at some other teams and we’re not bringing our best effort because maybe they don’t pass the eye test. I think that’s something we’ve got to correct moving forward.”

Next, the Warriors will take on Deerfield-Windsor at home on January 16 before welcoming Thomasville for what is sure to be another thriller.