On Friday January 10, #11 Jesuit Men’s basketball (5-6) took on the #6 Central Catholic Rams (4-5) in one of the most anticipated games of the year.
Two weeks prior, Jesuit lost to Central Catholic in the Les Schwab Invitational.
“We went over some of their sets in practice, and we figured out what they liked to do, what their personnel was, who liked to attack, who liked to shoot, and we tried to execute that in the game as we could,” sophomore Major Williams said.
Scoring opened by sophomore Issac Bongen, which set off a reaction of a back and forth game with a tight score. The first quarter ended 7-12.
In the second quarter, Jesuit started to trail by a bigger gap with the quarter ending 15-24. Although in the third quarter Jesuit came out after halftime with new energy and were overwhelming Central Catholic. Coach Potter said that their halftime talk focused on playing their own game.
“‘The first half, some of the stuff I watched out there things that we don’t do in practice. So mostly we just said let’s focus on getting better and doing the things that we need to do as a team.”’
Senior Ryan Fraser had a big part in this game due to the responsibility of marking Central Catholics point guard Issac Carr. Fraser marked him during the Les Schwab Invitational game as well and “‘[tried] to make him see bodies and live with contested threes and just force him into the middle of the paint where he can see more bodies,”’ Fraser said.
The fourth quarter proved to be nerve wracking as the score was tight and time was limited. The game was on the line, being determined by one point. Jesuit tied the score with just under 30 seconds left. Working to win the ball and secure another scoring opportunity, Jesuit initiated a full court press. Sadly this converted to a foul on Jesuit players and Central took the lead and won the game 54-56.
Potter, is using this game as a stepping stone moving forward in the season.
“[The game showed] learning the importance that every possession during a game can make the difference. I mean, people remember the last possession of a game. I remember all the possessions where we didn’t get a defensive rebound or we turned the ball over. So we just got to learn about championship possessions.”
“‘I think it was a crazy atmosphere,” Fraser said. “It was a really fun game. We definitely can beat Central. We’ll see them in March when it counts.”’
