JACKSON — Sometimes knowing a whirlwind is coming doesn’t make it any easier to stop it.
Such was the case for the Aberdeen High School boys basketball team on Friday afternoon against two-time reigning state champion Velma Jackson. The Bulldogs knew the Falcons were going to try to use their pressure defense to control the tempo and to force turnovers. Aberdeen coach Jaworski Rankin preached to his players that they had to stay focused and that they couldn’t allow one or two mistakes to lead to three or four.
But the best intentions of Rankin and the Bulldogs weren’t enough to stop the Falcons’ onslaught once the turnovers started.
Mississippi State signee Quinndary Weatherspoon scored a game-high 28 points, handed out nine assists, grabbed five rebounds, and made five steals to lead Velma Jackson to a 76-38 victory against Aberdeen in the Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 3A State title game at Mississippi Coliseum.
“We knew they were going to come in and fight and give it their all,” Aberdeen senior guard Marcus Carouthers said. “We tried to come in and fight, too. We just turned the ball over and couldn’t get any shots at the ball. They were just outhustling us.”
Moses Greenwood added 19 points and six rebounds, while Kendarius Smith had 10 points, five assists, and three steals to help the Falcons (32-2) win their third title in a row. Velma Jackson beat Booneville 45-44 in 2013 and East Side 50-35 last season.
On Friday, Velma Jackson forced 21 turnovers, had 13 steals, and shot 52.5 percent (32 of 61) from the field. Many of those attempts came off layups, as the Falcons soared into the passing lanes and harassed the Bulldogs all over the court.
Trent Davis led Aberdeen (26-6) with 16 points and six rebounds. Carouthers had nine points and five rebounds, but he was 4 of 15 from the field (1 of 6 from 3-point range) and had six turnovers. Carouthers’ performance included a missed dunk off a steal early in the first quarter that set the tone for the Bulldogs’ troubles. The senior guard, who had a game-high 25 points in the team’s win against Forest in the semifinals, said his knee buckled a little on his runup to the rim, which prevented him from getting the elevation he typically would have to complete the dunk.
Junior point guard Queshod Young (eight points) had five turnovers in 27 minutes. He said the Bulldogs knew what was coming, but he said it was difficult to stay on track through the swings in momentum after the turnovers.
“It really changed a lot,” Young said. “It is not difficult. You have to think fast and stay focused during the game. If you don’t do that, the pressure will hit you.
“Our guys lost focus when we made four turnovers. Some people put their head down and we lost focus. They came out with a good press.”
Velma Jackson had six steals and forced nine turnovers in the first eight minutes to take a 20-6 lead. The Bulldogs appeared to gain traction early in the second quarter after the Falcons missed a couple of shots and the teams settled into a semblance of a half-court rhythm. A 3-pointer by Young helped Aberdeen creep back to 22-12 with 5 minutes, 33 seconds left in the first half. But Young missed a floater and a 3-pointer that could have cut into the deficit a little more and added to Aberdeen’s confidence. Those misses proved crucial because another missed floater by Jerrick Orr led to three consecutive turnovers and three more steals by the Falcons. When the Bulldogs looked up, the Falcons had used a 16-0 run to remove any doubt.
“It was getting bigger and bigger,” Young said. “It depended on how we handled the press. If we went into the press with focus and wanted to face the press, it could be beat, bu we lost focus on the press and they pressure us.”
Rankin felt his team had opportunities to break the pressure and get baskets to get Velma Jackson out of the pressure. He lamented a slow start that included several missed layups sapped the confidence from his players. He believed the Bulldogs had another chance to get back into the game in the second quarter, but he said the turnovers were too much to overcome.
“Mentally our kids never responded at that point,” Rankin said. “I fault myself for (his team’s loss of focus) because as a coach you want to make sure your kids are mentally prepared no matter who you play. We just didn’t have that savvy about ourselves. We were kind of unsure.”
Rankin hopes the lessons learned playing against one of the state’s best teams will help his program moving forward. He said his team’s inexperience at several positions played a role against a team that started four seniors and had six players earn at least one steal.
“They are the best I’ve seen (at pressing teams and getting them to lose focus),” Rankin said. “I have seen Callaway. They are up there, but when you’re talking about controlling tempo, they are going to play the game they want to play. They are very disciplined in it on both ends of the floor. It is like a double-edged sword almost. What do you do? On the half-court, they get what they want. If you go zone, they are going to hold it and pull you back out. All you can do on our end is, hopefully, make some shots and create some turnovers on their end and get the lead. We just never could get that lead and transition the lead to us. They are pretty good.”
Rankin, who was in his first season as head coach at the school, loses Jarvis Eckford, Marquez Verner, Marcus and Derrell Carouthers, Davis, Juan Davis, and Malik Merhundrew. He feels the team has two building blocks with Young and 6-foot-9 center Jartavius Dobbs, who both showed significant improvement in the past season. He said it will be difficult in the short term to get past the loss, but he knows long term the players will be able to take the experience and use it to get back to Jackson in the future.
“Character,” Rankin said. “I want the guys coming back to learn from the experience and to have that high character so that when things get tough and adversity hits, you can fight through it. That is the only way you’re going to get better as a player and as an individual.
“You got a taste of it and you know what it takes to get here. Now we know what it takes to bring it home. As a coach, I want them to learn how do we get to the next level of bringing that ball home.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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