Double-digit first-half deficit too much for Napa Valley College to overcome in loss to Alameda
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
In basketball, it’s never a good idea to spot your opponent a double-digit advantage early in the contest.
But, on Thursday, that’s what the Napa Valley College men’s basketball team did when they dropped their first Bay Valley Conference games of the season to the College of Alameda 81-72.
The Storm (4-11 overall, 2-1 BVC) trailed by 12 with 13:47 left in the first half before going into the break down by 19.
“We didn’t have a very good start defensively,” Napa Valley College coach Steve Ball explained. “We can go into halftime (down) 28-32. We can’t go into halftime (down) 28-48, that’s not okay. That’s not us defensively. We let what happened on the offensive end affect what we’re doing on the defensive end and that’s a problem. So we’ve got it we got to fix that and that’s the second game in a row we’ve had a really bad slow start. So we’ve got we got to turn things around and come out with a little more animosity and compete a little bit more to tip it.”
However, in the second half, Napa Valley slowly chipped away at the Alameda (8-6, 1-1 BVC) lead and eventually got to within four points. Napa also trailed by five and six-point deficits before finally getting within four points.
Part of the reason why things were able to change for Napa was because of good defense with good rebounding.
“I mean we changed things up a little bit defensively to take them out of their stuff,” Ball said of the second-half turnaround. “They did a lot of high-low stuff and they hit a lot of shots tonight give them credit for that. But, we tried to take the ball out of number two’s (Kameron Malbrough) hands and when we did that, you know put other guys in a position where they had to make the plays and they weren’t quite as comfortable with it because he’d been making plays the whole first half. So, put them in a position where they weren’t quite as comfortable.”
Another part of the equation as to why NVC was able to slash the deficit down to four was because of the fact that they had four scorers in double-digit figures on the night.
The leader of all of them was Shakir Howard who ended the night with 19 points and nine rebounds.
Other key contributors were Jaivon Williams who added 15 points and grabbed five rebounds. Braxton Adderly scored 14 points to go along with three rebounds. Rounding out the scorers in double-figures was Saleem Ali-Musa who had 13 points and led the way on the glass by bringing in 14 rebounds.
“We only had 28 (points) in the first half, so we must’ve put some points on the board in the second half,” Ball added. “But, you know, those guys can score. We’ve got four or five guys that are capable of scoring 19 a game if they come out ready to go and their game’s clicking a little bit. Nobody was clicking in the first half.
“So, we did turn things around and the flip side in the second half our defense helped us feel confident on the offensive end and that’s what should’ve happened in the first half. We let our lack of offense productivity on the defensive end. In the second half, we allowed our defensive energy to help us on the offensive end and that’s the direction that things go.”
Luckily, Napa will have a short time until their next game when they visit Mendocino in Ukiah on Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m.
