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Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Canton McKinley rewind: ‘You go out and play the best’
Canton McKinley dropped a 64-51 decision at Dunbar Tuesday night. Assistant coach Dave Thompson subbed for head coach Greg Malone, who stayed home because of illness.
In Bulldogs coach Thompson’s words:
“(Coach Greg Malone) was sick and was under doctor’s orders to stay home. I didn’t get a chance to talk about that, nor would I share that. He gave me a long list of things that we had to do to get prepared to come, and that’s what I did.
“(When did you hear?) At about 11:28 (a.m.).
“We wanted to play Dayton Dunbar because they have a rich history of winning. You could see that spread all over their walls. We have that same rich history and we wanted to challenge ourselves against a state champion. That’s what happened.
“We’re going to learn from this and we’ll be better by playing better teams. Our coach has that philosophy. You go out and play the best, so when it’s tournament time, it’s not foreign to you.
“We believe defense wins championships, so that’s our emphasis.
“That’s state tournament basketball. When we went down there in our first trip with a very good group with Raymar Morgan was a sophomore, we played against Hamilton. What we learned from losing that game was, it’s physical when you get to the Final Four. We learned from that and were fortunate to respond to that and win back to back.
“It’s a three-and-half-hour bus ride (back to Canton). We have a good bus driver.”
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TweetDunbar coach Pete Pullen rewind: ‘That was a grinder’
Dunbar defeated visiting Canton McKinley 64-51 Tuesday night to improve its record to 7-1. It was the first time the programs had played since the 1987 Class AAA state championship game at UD Arena, which the Wolverines won, 70-65.
In Dunbar coach Pete Pullen’s words:
“We needed a game. We were supposed to play this game at Berlin Hiland. They wanted a doubleheader. McKinley really didn’t want to go to Berlin. I said, well, let’s play, but you’ve got to come to me first. He agreed to that, so I’ll take a senior bunch up to him next year.
“And Benedictine, which would have been a great matchup. They were a little disappointed that McKinley just wanted to come down here. That’s how it started. We’re just going to try and keep it going between two great programs.
“That was a grinder for us. Especially when we were missing a little piece. Everybody had to step up. … Damarion Geter started in place of Akbar. … He showed a little toughness that he hadn’t been showing in the other games. I told him that he had to step up this game because we were missing a family member and he did a great job for us.
“This kind of game helps and it sends a message up to those people in the northeast, too. We’re still alive.
“Our kids have a heart that you just can’t measure. We’ll do some silly stuff to dig ourselves in a hole, but we always come through a majority of the time to get us out of the hole. It is frustrating as a coach.
“Keontae (Brown) shot a three right in front of me that we really didn’t need. I said, don’t shoot that shot, don’t shoot that shot. And he blamed me for missing it. I said, naw, you shouldn’t have shot that at all.”
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