Immediately after Republic lost the championship game of the Republic Invitational to Park Hill South 59-50, coach Tim Brown refused to dwell on the negatives.
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“First off, I thought we had a great week. We did a lot of good things. We did have … some long spurts that put us in some bad spots, but if you add up the number of minutes of the three games we played, I thought we had a lot of positive minutes, so I’m really proud of our guys.”
The Tigers had walloped Fort Smith Southside in the tournament opener, then slipped by Rogersville in overtime Friday night. But Brown said his team didn’t take care of some of the little things Saturday that are usually among the Tigers’ strengths.
“We are usually really good at … the attention-to-detail-type things. We allowed one of their players to make four threes, and we knew that all he could do was be a designated shooter. Those guys aren’t supposed to get shots,” Brown said. “It wasn’t a lack of effort. It was kind of a mental thing where we didn’t do what we usually do.”
The Tigers also turned the ball over 11 times and missed several free throws in the first half that could have given them a cushion going into the halftime break. Instead, the teams went into halftime tied 25-25.
Park Hill South jumped ahead 15-10 on the strength of five three-pointers. Republic rattled off seven straight points to take the lead, and the game remained close through the middle of the fourth quarter. That’s when the Panthers stepped it up at both ends of the floor, turning a 44-all tie into a 56-48 lead with a 12-4 run.
Drew McMillin continued his hot start, scoring a season-high 22 points to lead Republic. Late in the second quarter, McMillin already had 14 points when Park Hill South finally resorted to a diamond-and-one defense to slow him down, dedicating a defender to guarding McMillin while four players played zone.
Race Looney and McMillin combined to score 22 of Republic’s 25 first-half points. Looney ended the game with a season-high 14 points.
Republic fell to 2-1. Park Hill South improved to 3-0. The Tigers will be at home against Clever next Tuesday.
Unofficial Stats
Republic Individual Scoring: Drew McMillin 22, Race Looney 14, Tucker Thomas 5, Joe Rexroat 4, Will Berry 2, Nate Woolford 2, Ahlante Askew 1
Turnovers: Republic 11, Park Hill South 5
Rebounds: Republic 19, Park Hill South 14