JONESBOROUGH – It was far from perfect, but the South Greene boys basketball team started the Hardee’s Classic at David Crockett High School on Tuesday with a 62-53 win over Cocke County.
“This is a good win against a good team, they have good shooters and good post game. For us to come out with a win tonight I am tickled to death,” South Greene coach Terry Hoese said. “With that said it was sloppy. Something has got to change at the free-throw line or we are not going to win close games. But defensively and as far as effort goes we did what we needed to do to win.”
South Greene will be back in action on Friday at 6 p.m. against Daniel Boone in the tournament’s semifinals and Hoese will be looking for a sharper performance from his squad.
“I’m competitive and I want to win every game, but we are playing for February,” Hoese said. “We were good enough tonight, but this was not good enough to beat somebody like Alcoa in February. That’s what we’re playing for. We want to use these gams to get better, because I’m sick of getting put out in the semifinals of the region tournament. This is a good bunch of kids, they play hard, and I want them to have something special at the end of the year.”
The game went back and forth early, but with three minutes left in the first quarter the Rebels started a 10-0 run. Control of the paint was key during the stretch as they limited Cocke County’s ability to score inside while creating second chances for themselves.
“I felt like our kids to kids did go rebound the basketball well,” Hoese said. “With our size we are going to have an advantage there most nights, and when you get some of those other guys scrapping around and fighting for rebounds we should be in pretty good shape. I was very happy with that effort, and with our size we should score 20 points a game on put backs.”
The run started with Trey Gentry dumping a pass to Jase Roderick on the block for lay in. Gentry also hit Roderick for an alley-oop layup, and Gamble gave South Greene a 16-7 advantage with a triple from the top of the key.
Cocke County’s Spencer Moore ended the quarter with a triple to close the gap to 16-10.
Pressure on the perimeter made the difference for Rebels early in the second quarter as a steal by Roderick turned into two points for Gamble, before Roderick took a steal of his own the distance for a 20-10 lead.
With 2:50 left in the first half Gavin Dyer came off the bench and immediately drained a trey from the left corner. Less than a minute later he connected from the left corner and for a 32-20 South Greene lead.
Dyer finished the night with 12 points, all from behind the arc, and gave the Rebels a big boost off the bench.
Gamble added another three-pointer before halftime and South Greene took a 35-24 lead into the break.
Cocke County switched to a zone to start the third quarter and it took over three minutes for South Greene to find a way to score on it.
On the other end of the floor Moore put in a back-door layup and a three-pointer as the Rebels’ lead shrank to 35-31.
Gentry got the Rebels going again with a transition layup setup by Gamble. Dyer then knocked down a triple from the left corner to bring the advantage back to 40-31.
Three-pointers from Dyer and Gamble followed to push South Greene’s lead to 48-36, but Cocke County’s Waylon Fox hit a short jumper as time expired in the quarter to close the gap to 48-38.
The Rebels had a chance to pull away in the fourth quarter with seven trips to the free-throw line, but they were 5-of-14 on those attempts. On the night South Greene went 6-of-22 at the free-throw line.
Less than two minutes into the final period Roderick went the length of the floor for a layup that gave South Greene a 51-38 lead.
South Greene’s biggest lead of the night came with 1:54 left when Gamble sank a triple from the left wing and Roderick made two free tosses to make it 59-45.
Cocke County’s Maddux Holt scored seven points in the final period to help close the gap to 62-53 at the final horn.
Gamble finished the night with 21 points to lead South Greene. Roderick had 15 points and Dyer scored 12.
For Cocke County Kyler Hayes scored 11 points while Ethan Fine, Moore and Holt each put in 10 points.
