Gallery by Tina Laney
Youth and a lack of varsity experience was the theme Tuesday night when Wyoming East hosted Nicholas County in the season opener for both boys basketball teams.
Defense, however, ruled the night.
Holding the visitors scoreless for over four minutes in the final quarter, the Warriors broke open a tight battle to secure a 63-46 win.
“The defense tickled me to death tonight. They have been doing that all summer and all fall,” interim Wyoming East head coach Herbie Brooks said. “If they can continue to do that, it will make up for some of the mistakes they make on the offensive end like not slowing it down, rushing and taking bad shots. They played well overall. They made some mistakes, but it is a process.”
Lacking varsity experience to open the 2024-25 season, the Grizzlies stepped inside what has typically been a House of Horrors for visiting squads.
“We had one returning starter on the court tonight and only two guys that played on the varsity team all last year,” Nicholas County head coach Brian Phipps said. “The score is deceptive. I thought we played really good for three quarters. It started to kind of get away from us in the fourth.”
Trailing 46-38 after three quarters, Nicholas County trimmed the deficit to five on a corner-3 from Isaac Miner.
With the outcome of the contest very much in doubt, Wyoming East’s dynamic freshmen, Broc Johnson and Talan Muscari separated the game in crunch-time.
“The defense started it. They pressure the ball and they get up in you,” Brooks said. “They force you to make mistakes. The other guys have joined in on that. They are freshman, but they are basketball players.”
Johnson started the run with a pair of free throws after being fouled on a strong drive the rack. Back-to-back layups, also by Johnson, one resulting from a steal by Muscari, pushed the lead to 52-41.
Maverick Smith scored to break a two-minute drought by the Grizzlies, but the Warriors maintained the pressure on both ends of the court.
Muscari first scored on a hard drive to the basket before he drilled a corner 3-ball via an inbound play. A hard drive by the young freshman on the next possession ended in a deuce for Konnor Fox taking the lead out to 16 points with just under three minutes to play.
The 9-0 spurt was capped by another steal from Muscari which produced a pair of free-throws from Johnson and a 61-43 lead.
A free throw from Isaiah Miner finally snapped the four-minute drought for the Grizzlies with 1:20 to play.
“Our kids still played hard, but instead of buckling down and executing what we wanted to do, it got kind of chaotic for us,” Phipps said about the final quarter. “We like chaotic in certain situations, but right there, we couldn’t be chaotic. We needed to be sure we stuck with our plan of what we were going to do, but we didn’t.”
Johnson led the Warriors with 17 points, while Muscari had 13 and Zach Hunt scored 11 points.
Trey Stump led Nicholas County in the first half with 16 points, but an adjustment by the Warriors defensively slowed him to six second half points.
“He got some buckets in the first half and it was just great offense,” Brooks said. “At first we came up on him with our hand down, instead of halfway up. We started putting our hand halfway up and then up in his face. That made them tougher shots. He missed some and didn’t get as many off.”
The second half scoring differential was also related to the youth of the Grizzlies in Phipps’ assessment.
“The difference was we didn’t work hard enough in the construct of the offensive sets that we were trying to do,” Phipps said. “We needed to set harder screens and run off those screens faster. Things like that. I thought we had opportunities to score in the second half. We missed to many layups and we have to shoot the ball from the perimeter more consistently.”
The positive for Nicholas County came in its defensive effort as well, especially the first three quarters.
“Our guys have grit. They take pride in their defense and stopping people,” Phipps said. “That is our plan. While there are some negatives that come from this game, there are a lot of positives. I will never fault the effort of my kids because they are going to play hard every time.”
NC: 15 10 13 8 – 46
WE: 16 16 14 17 – 63
Nicholas County
Trey Stump 22, Ira Mylott 9, Maverick Smith 8, Isaiah Miner 5, Brock Miles 2.
Wyoming East
Broc Johnson 17, Talan Muscari 13, Zach Hunt 11, Konnor Fox 6, Braxton Morgan 6, Corey Hall 5, Braydon Hoosier 3, Landon Hodges 2.
