After a sixth-place finish in the Clopton Tournament, the Wright City boys basketball team stands at 2-8 on the season as head coach Ryan Benz continues to seek ways to get his team on the right …
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After a sixth-place finish in the Clopton Tournament, the Wright City boys basketball team stands at 2-8 on the season as head coach Ryan Benz continues to seek ways to get his team on the right track.
“I expected us to compete in every game, and we didn’t do that,” he said. “We remained very inconsistent.”
The Wildcats opened the tournament with a 69-39 loss to Louisiana, followed that up with a 45-32 victory over Silex, and finished the tournament with a 65-42 loss to Elsberry in the consolation championship.
Louisiana took third in the tournament after defeating Clopton 42-41 in the third-place game, while Monroe City knocked off Winfield 59-47 to win the tournament.
There was some hint of consistency for the Wildcats — at least when it came to who was putting up points. Juniors Hayden Beck, Trent Bruning and Kyle Johnson led the team in scoring throughout the tournament. Johnson led the team with 15 points against Louisiana while Beck had 11. Beck led the team in scoring against Silex (18 points) and Elsberry (11 points), while Johnson added 11 in the Silex game and put up 10 against Elsberry. Bruning put up 10 points against both Silex and Elsberry.
“Those three had great offensive and rebounding contributions this week. With them being younger, shot selection and overall consistency are areas they need to improve on,” said Benz. “I’ve seen improvements from not only those three but the whole team this year. Honestly, at the beginning of the year, we struggled to put a good three minutes together, but we are to a point where we are putting almost two quarters together.
“We tend to revert back to some bad habits but are making progress. Finally getting everybody together this week has helped with some consistency, but we have to do a better job at not turning to quick shots from deep.”
Those trends were evident in the Clopton Tournament, as the Wildcats had difficulty finishing what they started.
“We had leads in all of the games but struggled maintaining the things we were doing,” said Benz. “I was pleased with more of an emphasis by our team to get the ball inside early in the games, and we shot over 50% on two-pointers all week. For us to have success from here on out we have to make that a priority from the beginning to the end of the game.”
