FWIW MaxPreps has them at 25 in its last poll and Silsbee is at No. 5. Hudson was 13 and Navasota was 14. Like the Tigers, the Lobos went 4 weeks into the football playoffs. They had a number of crossover players who got a late start and their basketball team only really gelled halfway through the season.
The Lobos are coming off of an extremely emotional win against No. 6 Wylie which included an epic 20 - 8 final run to win Region 1. They've got to be totally pumped after that. They just may capable of pulling off 2 upsets if they can catch some breaks. If they beat us I'm going to try to get a ticket and see the final because it could be something special.
They have an almost legitimate 6-6 post in Williams that Silsbee will be fouling right and left. He'll go to the line a bunch of times. It would be real handy if he's not a good free throw shooter. Williams could also allow the Lobos to go over the top of Silsbee's pressure if they know how to do that. Their point guard Gerber is solid but I'm sure he hasn't faced pressure quite as intense as Silsbee will put on him. He'll probably go to the line more times in this game than he has in any two games so far. Again, it would be nice if he could struggle a bit with his FT shooting on Friday. They may be able to slow the ball down to some extent for at least 2 1/2 quarters. But then fatigue will become a factor. We saw it with Navasota. The Rattlers staged a brilliant comeback in the 3rd but burned a lot of fuel doing it. Then Silsbee just pulled away.
Same thing was true of Hudson. Even No. 10 Garges, their space alien point guard, finally started to fade. Seems like he made 1000 good decisions through 2 1/2 quarters. But he started to run out of gas and became a good deal less effective from the middle of the 3rd on.
Seems likely we will be able to do the same thing against Levelland. The Lobos have some talent and are on a roll and should be able to stay close or stage an early come back like Navasota. But can they hang on in the 4th against a team with 2 full platoons? Doesn't seem likely. The Tigers have been positively predatory so far. They may have a cat for a namesake but they hunt in a pack and can run all day like wolves.
From what I saw in HJ, they are turn over prone...I mean they turned the ball over against Ozen like it was HOT! I know they turned it over like 20+ times, but in their defense it was the first game after the Christmas break, but I thought then that Silsbee's pressure would really bother them....I think this will get ugly at Silsbee by the 4th....Silsbee by 17.
Fireboy1970 got a reaction from BADSANTA in Silsbee 126 Jasper 72/Final