ROACHDALE - There were more problems than solutions for Southmont’s boys basketball team in a 46-36 season-opening loss to North Putnam.
The Mounties offense, aside from shots close to the rim, never got going, and the defense had their own issues, as the Cougars jumped out to an early lead and played keepaway for most of the second half.
“We didn’t do a lot well tonight,” South coach Jake Turner said. “We have to get a lot better in a lot of areas. Give North Putnam a lot of credit – they played harder than we did and out-executed us. They played defense like we want to play defense.”
The Mounties never led after scoring the first basket of the game, as NP hit their first three and seven of their first 10.
The Cougars kept the lead at or close to double-figures the rest of the game as they open their season.
“We had a lot of shots close to the rim that we missed,” Turner said, “and we had a lot of three’s miss, and then there were misses on set plays. A good number of those we make in practice, but the real tough part is that we always know we can play good defense on a bad offense night. We didn’t do that tonight. We try to be best with our defense, rebounding and toughness, especially on the road. We thought we could out-tough North Put tonight, but we sure didn’t do that, especially in the first half.”
South was led in scoring by Carson Chadd’s 14 points and eight rebounds, but the senior had a lot of company around him.
The Mounties struggled from outside the paint all game, hitting only two three-pointers in 19 attempts and finishing 14-of-43 from the field.
They also had an off night at the line, going 6-of-14. They finished with 30 rebounds and 16 turnovers. Vince Reimondo was second-high in scoring with seven points.
The Cougars didn’t have a scorer in double figures, but had three with nine and another with eight.
They were 16-of-37 from the field, 2-of-15 from long range and 12-of-17 from the line. They had 33 rebounds and 14 turnovers.
“I have to do a better job of coaching these guys so they know better what we need and want,” Turner said. “We have to learn from tonight. The guys have to do a better job of executing the plan we have. We’ll get better, we’ll learn from this, but we first have to get tougher.”
