Prep hoops: Jaguars struggle to find balance, but down Valencia
12/3/2008
Photo by: Luis Sanchez Saturno/The New Mexican
Conversion, though, was another matter.
Time and time again in the first half Tuesday night, Capital got the shots it wanted and the situations it needed to be successful in its boys basketball home opener against the Valencia Jaguars.
But at least a dozen layups and 10 free throws were missed. It mattered little to the Jaguars that they went into the locker room at halftime with a 26-11 lead — on their way to a 61-30 win in Edward A. Ortiz Memorial Gymnasium.
What mattered was turning opportunities into points, whether it was against a first-year varsity program or against Albuquerque La Cueva.
The Class AAAAA Bears await AAAA Capital (3-0) next week, and those kinds of misses will be less forgivable.
"Frustrated" was the word Capital head coach Ben Gomez used to describe his team's approach around the basket.
"What we did worked most of the time," Gomez said. "We just didn't convert on our side."
"Timid" was how Jaguar forward Reece Goodman put it.
"We finish a lot better when we're in transition instead of the halfcourt, because we're open," Goodman said.
The halfcourt set was where short arms and weak stomachs showed.
During a 25-second stretch in the second quarter, Capital had six shots inside of 5 feet and made none.
Twice in that stretch, the Jaguars went to the free-throw line, only to convert one of four attempts. Capital was 6-for-17 from the line at the break and just 17 of 32 for the night.
If not for 19 first-half turnovers from Capital's full-court trap, which included 11 steals, Valencia (0-2) could have been within shouting distance.
That was not the case for a team that is full of sophomores and freshmen who were more wild-eyed than poised.
"We were a little bit fortunate to be in that game," Valencia head coach Dominick Romero said. "They're a solid team and we're young and inexperienced and just growing right now."
The second half was a different story as the Jaguars hit five of their first seven shots.
Three of them were layups, with Albert Prada's bunny at the 2:53 mark of the third quarter making it 41-17.
It's the kind of progress Gomez hopes his team can carry into next week because Capital is off until then. Once the Jaguars hit the floor against La Cueva, their season picks up in a hurry, with 10 games in a two-week stretch.
The schedule was not Gomez's idea.
"That's what was given to us," Gomez said. "You want to be able to get some games in during the week and then work on stuff. That's not afforded to us until next week, and then it's on-the-job training, so to speak."