For the first time in district play, the Lampasas boys’ basketball team will have to respond to the adversity of a loss after the Salado Eagles beat them 74-53 last Friday night.
In what was a very competitive backand- forth first half of basketball, the two teams went into the halftime break with Salado leading by three. Then in the third quarter, the Badgers struggled from the field and Salado got what it wanted offensively. The Eagles separated out to a 10-point lead by the start of the fourth quarter. The gap would widen from there.
The Badgers continued to struggle offensively, and they did not play very good on-ball defense. That allowed the Eagles to get to the basket when they wanted and get the shots they were looking for the entire second half.
Head coach Aaron Nuckles identified three things he thought were the main problems in the loss.
He said the Badgers played bad on-ball defense all night, and they did not do a good job of communicating from the sideline onto the court and getting into the right offensive sets. Nuckles added that he thought his team got a little rattled mentally in the third quarter.
After the loss, Nuckles said Salado was the better team Friday, but he reminded the Badgers they are 9-1 and 25-8 [on the season], and they are going to be OK.
“Don’t let this loss turn into two … this can’t cost us the district championship,” Nuckles told his players. “Yes, it can still be [cochampions], and it’s going to let them back in it, but you can’t let this loss turn into two or three.”
Beau Patterson was the team’s leading scorer in the game with 18 points. Aidan Nuckles finished with 12 points, and Peyton Sisson scored 11. Calum Mitchell added seven points, Jax Pratus scored three, and Ty Borchardt finished with two points.
Because the Badgers had not lost a game previously in district play, the question is about how they will respond now with two district games remaining and the playoffs to follow after that.
“You’ve got to realize that we’re not invincible,” Nuckles said. “We do have flaws, and you have to try to hide those flaws and correct those flaws and move on.”
The coach thought his team was locked in and ready to go heading into the contest last Friday, and that showed in the first half as the Badgers battled back and forth with Salado.
After the game, Nuckles could tell his players were disappointed and looking for reasons why they lost the game.
“They’re pretty resilient, and we’ve lost games before,” Nuckles said. “We’ve lost eight of them now this season … so come back and be ready to go. If you can get stuff out of a loss, I’ll take it as long as it doesn’t end your season.”
He also gave credit to coach Jaden Napolez for saying that if the team did go undefeated through district, that would be a long winning streak to take into the playoffs, and sometimes teams need the taste of failure to know they don’t want to experience it again.
Ultimately, this loss doesn’t change much for the Badgers. They have two district games left -- against Burnet on Tuesday and Gateway next week. If they win both, then the worst they can finish is as co-district champions if Salado wins its final three games.
Lampasas already secured the big school one seed prior to last Friday and will have a shot at the playoff run that has been on the Badgers’ minds since before the season started.
Now, the focus turns to Burnet tonight with a 7:30 p.m. tipoff in the Badger Den.
The JV Blue team also lost to Salado in a competitive contest, 5244, while JV White fell 41-31.
