In an unbelievable turnaround from the way it played in its opener 10 days ago, an 80-52 win at South Effingham, the Bryan County boys team fell off the cliff Tuesday night at McIntosh County Academy as the Buccaneers rolled to a 90-25 victory.
In a game which became increasingly hard to watch, the Redskins seemingly could do absolutely nothing right in losing their Region 3-DII opener to the Bucs (3-0, 1-0) who were ranked No. 5 in the state in the latest AJC rankings.
“We went from the penthouse to the outhouse in one game,” said Coach Jason Napier who could only stand by helplessly as his team did nothing to resemble the one which blitzed South Effingham. “It wasn’t good, obviously, but I told them after the game we have 12 games in four weeks so you have to have a short memory.
“We were dealing with some issues with players out and that hurt us,” Napier said. “But it’s next man up and you have to do that. So, it was very humbling.
“Our conditioning, our lack of conditioning, really showed tonight and that’s something we’re going to have to address.”
The Redskins were playing without fourth-year starting point guard Elijah Mincey who suffered an injury in practice and while in uniform Napier said prior to the game Mincey would not be playing.
“He’s been in protocol, he was cleared today, but he hasn’t been practicing,” Napier said. “This is just our second game and we have a rough stretch ahead of us so there’s no need to take any chances.”
The Redskins (1-1, 0-1) play their home opener Friday night when they take on Portal, are at Windsor Forest on Saturday and go to Screven County on Tuesday before a home game with No. 1 Savannah three nights later.
That the game ended with a 65-point margin between the two teams was a difficult pill to swallow considering the way it started.
Neither team was shooting well and both were playing excellent defense and Bryan County trailed 10-6 with 1:40 left in the first quarter. Even without Mincey the Redskins were holding their own against the Bucs, a veteran team coming off a 21-11 season which saw it advance to the Sweet 16 of the state playoffs last year.
The dam burst in the second quarter, however, as McIntosh, leading 14-6 after the first, pushed its lead to 35-14 at the half and then what happened in the third quarter was difficult to watch if you were a Redskins partisan.
McIntosh scored the first 26 points of the quarter to cap a 30-0 run going back to the second quarter. Mike Smith broke the Bryan County drought when he drove to the basket to score. That made the score 61-16 with 46 seconds on the clock. The big question was why play the fourth quarter, the only reason being that’s what the rules called for.
Ger’Bravion Collins, Chris Winfree and Jadon Odum had six points each to lead the Redskins who compounded their problems by going 0-for-11 at the free throw line.
“The first four or five minutes of the game our defense was good, our energy was great and then the wheels fell off and we couldn’t get them back on,” Napier said. “We are going to go back and get the ship corrected.”