Coming off their lopsided victory over cross-town rival Del City, the Midwest City boys’ basketball team (8-0) took the consolation championship and a fifth place finish in the Putnam City Invitational.
The 15th edition of the PCI wasn’t kind to start for 6A’s No. 2 ranked Bombers as the tournament got underway last Thursday at Putnam City West.
Midwest City saw the home school Oklahoma City Storm led by TCU commit guard Chauncey Collins in day one, and Collins wasted no time showing why he was last year’s National Homeschool Player of the Year.
Collins followed 8 first quarter points with 13 more in the second quarter going 4-7 from the 3-point line in that time span. The demoralizing part for the Bombers wasn’t Collins hitting 3’s but the kind that he was taking and knocking down.
Collins pulled up from what felt like Putnam City North a few times even hitting one while getting fouled at one point.
"They probably won’t ever shoot that well again which is kind of irritating to me," said Midwest City coach Dewayne Bradley. "A lot of those shots weren’t open shots and a lot of those guys made shots that don’t normally make shots."
Compounding the Bomber’s frustrations was their inability to knock down shots.
While the OKC Storm knocked down 3’s at a high clip going 6-13 in the first half, it felt like Midwest City couldn’t buy a bucket. The normally hot shooting Bombers only hit one 3-pointer the whole half. In fact, they shot 6-26 total in the first half.
"When they would make a shot, we weren’t scoring," said Bradley. "We had a lot of chances to get to the free throw line and make free throws. We gave up a lot of points but missed chances to score a lot of points, and that bothered me too."
The Storm never looked back on their way to giving the Bombers their first loss of the season in a 101-69 rout. Collins finished his night dropping a double quarter (50 points) on Midwest City hitting 10 3-pointers total.
But, Midwest City would regroup against the Putnam City North Panther the next night.
Coach Bradley said after the gut wrenching first loss of the season the Bombers spent an hour Thursday night in the gym.
It paid off because the Bombers shook off a brief slow start to take a 25-15 lead into the second quarter. Senior guard Torey Noel led the way with 13 points and the defense got back to doing what it does best forcing the 20th ranked team in 6A into five turnovers.
"I thought we got back to playing real aggressive, hard and with a sense of urgency on defense," said Bradley of his team’s bounce back.
The stifling defense kept coming in the second quarter as the Panthers went at least five minutes in the quarter without scoring a basket. Meanwhile, Midwest City extended their lead to 23 points going into halftime.
Midwest City sophomore guard Jourdin Anderson, who got the start for the somewhat banged up Kesean Brown, had five points in the quarter as six different Bombers hit the scoring column in the second quarter.
"Everybody did a lot of good things for us," said Bradley. "I think it was probably one of our best team efforts."
The Panthers did make a run in the third quarter behind 3-6 3-point shooting and cut the lead down to 15, but it was senior forward Caleb Corprew for the Bombers who slammed the door shut in the fourth. Corprew scored 8 straight points to push the lead back above 20. Midwest City would go on to defeat the Panthers 85-51.
Coach Bradley really emphasized to his team how important it would be to get off to a good start against the Putnam City Pirates in day three of the PCI.
The Bombers did just that. The 2-7 Pirates were overmatched from tip-off and ended up falling to Midwest City by a score of 85-72. The Bombers rebounded from a day one loss to win the next two matchups and take home a fifth place finish and PCI Consolation Championship.
Midwest City plays again Friday, Jan 17 against Norman North.
