Bears gun down Sacred Heart
- Updated: December 8, 2017
Plainview uses its long-range shooting to clip Cardinals, spoil Alabama signee Wood’s 2017-18 debut
Sacred Heart’s Diante Wood (1) positions himself to receive an entry pass from Joshua Brown during his season debut Thursday against Plainview. (Photos by B.J. Franklin/GungHo Photos)
Thursday’s results
Ashville 70, Wellborn 34
Clay Central 60, Piedmont 28
JCA 77, Cedar Bluff 60
Plainview 100, Sacred Heart 90
Spring Garden 94, Donoho 36
Weaver 82, Cleburne County 67
By Al Muskewitz
East Alabama Sports Today
They packed out Sacred Heart’s tiny gym Thursday night to see two top-ranked teams play basketball and the long-awaited debut of Alabama signee Diante Wood and they didn’t leave disappointed.
Well, maybe Sacred Heart coach Ralph Graves did because he expects more, but everyone who paid to get in certainly left satisfied with the show.
Plainview, the No. 1 team in Class 3A, put on its typical dazzling display of outside shooting, hitting 19 3-pointers, that offset Wood’s 40 points and lift the Bears to a 100-90 win over the No. 1 1A Cardinals.
“What did you expect out of two of the top teams in the state?” Graves said.
To see a gallery of photos from the game visit www.bjfranklin.smugmug.com
The Bears (7-0), who hit a state record 25 3s against North Sand Mountain earlier this season, hit a dozen treys in the second half. They hit seven in a row in a stretch midway through the fourth quarter to take control after Wood got a favorable bounce on a 3-ball at the other end to give the Cardinals (3-5) a 72-68 lead.
Caden Millican hit seven of the long-range shots in the game; Jeffery Armstrong and Koby Tinker hit four each. The Bears have now hit 106 3-pointers in seven games this season and never fewer than 10 in any of them.
“It’s who we are,” Plainview coach Robi Coker said. “We’ve got a lot of guards (eight) who have worked on their game in the gym in the summers and coming up through the program. We tell them we’re going to let you shoot them, you’d better work on it, and it’s been really good for us. It’s kind of our M.O.”
Wood, the last of Sacred Heart’s Division I triple threats, signed with Alabama in ceremonies at the school the Wednesday before the Cardinals season opener then sprained his ankle two days later at the team’s preseason pep rally and hadn’t played until Thursday.
He had 40 points and eight rebounds and shot 10-of-20 from the floor with several 3-point attempts. Cardinals coach Ralph Graves thought his 6-foot-5 senior star “played well” going about 85 percent on the ankle; Wood’s father Chris placed it at 75 percent.
There were at least two uncontested plays in the first half Wood gave up his signature slams that surely would have brought the house to its feet for easy lay-ins. The second one gave the Cardinals a 10-point lead.
Graves made the players off-limits for post-game interviews, so it was impossible to know how Wood felt about his delayed debut. Chris Wood, however, thought his son did “all right” for an opening game after only getting cleared earlier in the week.
“For the first game of the season he did all right,” the elder Wood said. “He was a little rough around the edges. He’s got to get his strength back.”
Before the game he described his son as “anxious” in the run-up to his first game. The Cardinals easily and expectedly won the three area games they played without him, but lost their other four against some top-flight competition.
“It’s been a headache for him,” Chris Wood continued. “He’s just had to get through this.”
Wood didn’t waste any time getting into the flow. The first play of the game he took a sharp pass down low and got fouled going to the basket. He made both free throws.
Actually, Graves was more concerned with the players around Wood on the floor and suggested if the Cardinals didn’t get right soon against the gauntlet it has left to play it could be looking down the barrel at double-digit losses. Their next top scorers, Khalil Watkins and Murdock Simmons, both fouled out of the game.
“We can’t win with Diante (alone); we have to have a team,” Graves said. “We’ve got to play better and we’ve got to get better as a team. We had some mental lapses there and when you’re playing against good teams you can’t have that, and the thing about it is our schedule doesn’t get any easier … so if we don’t get it together we might as well get ready to get ourselves in the double-digit loss column and that’s where we’re going to be.
“Everybody’s here to see Diante and everybody wants to go at Diante. What they don’t understand is Diante is going to Alabama regardless … but if you want to be a championship team you have to be disciplined.”
THURSDAY’S BOYS BOXSCORES
Plainview 100, Sacred Heart 90
PLAINVIEW (7-0) – Tucker Kay 1 0-0 2, Dane Haymon 1 2-4 4, Haden White 1 0-0 3, Caden Millican 7 3-6 24, Bailey Dukes 2 0-0 6, Jeffery Armstrong 8 7-27, Cade Willingham 5 1-3 11, Clay Cooper 2 0-0 5, Koby Tinker 5 4-6 18. Totals 32 17-26 100.
SACRED HEART (3-5) – Quin Riggins 4 3-4 12, Diante Wood 10 18-21 40, Victor Wilson 1 1-2 4, Jack Miller 1 0-0 2, Murdock Simmons 5 2-4 12, Caleb Brown 0 0-0 0, Joshua Brown 1 0-0 2, Stephen Stansil 1 0-0 2, Khalil Watkins 7 1-2 16. Totals 30 25-33 90.
Plainview 17 18 31 34 — 100
Sacred Heart 25 9 27 29 — 90
3-point goals: Plainview 19 (White, Millican 7, Dukes 2, Armstrong 4, Cooper, Tinker 4); Sacred Heart 5 (Riggins, Wood 2, Wilson, Watkins). Technical fouls: Cooper, Simmons, Wood. Fouled out: Dukes, Cooper, Watkins, Simmons. Total fouls: Plainview 23, Sacred Heart 25. Officials: Burroughs, Wise, Howell.
Clay Central 60, Piedmont 28
PIEDMONT – Kaedon Jenkins 0 0-0 0, Delo Foster 2 0-0 4, Elijah Johnson 0 0-0 0, Ryley Kirk 3 1-4 9, Logan Pruitt 0 0-0 0, Lee Stanley 1 1-2 3, Silas Thompson 3 1-3 7, T.J. Fairs 1 3-6 5, Malachi Jackson 0 0-0 0, Jakari Foster 0 0-0 0, Sean Smith 0 0-0 0. Totals 10 6-15 28.
CLAY CENTRAL – Jacquez Bullock 4 0-0 9, Cameron Peoples 3 2-5 8, Cole Burns 1 1-2 3, Ben Street 3 2-2 9, Jamal Williamson 7 0-2 16, Quen McKinney 4 0-1 8, Dewayne Garrett 0 0-0 0, Shemeri Simmons 1 3-4 5, LaShawn Simmons 0 1-2 1, Damien Drummonds 0 1-2 1. Totals 23 10-20 60.
Piedmont 6 7 11 4 — 28
Clay Central 15 13 22 10 — 60
3-point goals: Piedmont 2 (Kirk 2); Clay Central 4 (Bullock, Street, Williamson 2). Technical fouls: Thompson. Fouled out: Thompson. Total fouls: Piedmont 18, Clay Central 15. Officials: Engel McNeal, Riddle.
Weaver 82, Cleburne County 67
CLEBURNE COUNTY – A.J. Brown 5 1-2 11, Taishun Hall 6 2-2 14, Chase Smith 0 0-0 0, Xavier Brown 0 0-0 0, Bradley Smith 2 0-0 4, Reese Morrison 4 2-3 11, Isavia Brown 8 3-3 20, Gage Harcrow 1 0-2 2, Ben Casey 0 5-6 5. Totals 26 13-18 67.
WEAVER – Taylor Deck 1 0-0 2, London Knight 4 3-5 11, Robert Gaines 7 8-12 22, Shamar Spinks 11 1-3 24, John Torres 0 3-4 3, Kristian Perry 0 2-2 2, Dalton Hamby 2 0-0 4, Gary Wallace 1 0-3 3, Amardric Elston 4 3-7 11. Totals 30 20-36 82.
Cleburne County 13 19 14 21 — 67
Weaver 18 17 22 25 — 82
3-point goals: Cleburne County 2 (Morrison, I. Brown); Weaver 2 (Spinks, Wallace). Total fouls: Cleburne County 23, Weaver 17. Officials: Daffron, Hinkle, Weeks.
Plainview’s Caden Millican (13) moves down the lane in hopes of cutting off the penetration of Sacred Heart guard Quin Riggins. Millican was just as dangerous on the other end of the floor, hitting seven of the Bears’ 19 3-pointers in their 100-90 win. (Photo by B.J. Franklin/GungHo Photos)
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