Fans from all ages got their money’s worth on Saturday afternoon, as a packed Bowling Green High School gym watched Kentucky’s top-rated high school boys basketball team and one of the nation’s top prep players in the second annual Wes Strader Schoolboy Classic.
Bowling Green, who ranked No. 1 in Monday’s Kentucky Associated Press Poll, welcomed in an up-and-down Male club that would be challenged with matching the size, strength and athleticism of the host.
The Bulldogs (12-12) wouldn’t be able to find any paths to shutting down the hot Purples (26-2), as Bowling Green pushed visiting Male aside and cruised to a 69-45 win to record its 19th-straight.
Terry Taylor, an Austin Peay State signee, scored a game-high 25 points and grabbed 12 rebounds – with 23 coming in the first half. Along with Taylor, Deangelo Wilson had 15 points while Zion Harmon finished with 14. Kyran Jones didn’t do much scoring, but he controlled the glass from 12 boards.
“I mean, it’s really big,” Wilson said of his team’s win. “It just shows that we’re really focused and we’re going towards the goal we want to go to. We’re getting better every game, we’re not sitting ourselves back and we’re just going hard every game.”
The Purples host Russellville on Tuesday night at 7:30 p.m. to close out the regular-season.
Bowling Green came out of the gates fired up and jumped to a quick 9-2 lead. That lead doubled to 24-12 early into the second quarter – a period in which Taylor nailed three three-pointers to help the Purples really start to take control of things.
“I guess he took some special juice before the game,” Wilson jokingly replied when asked where Taylor’s deep shot came from. “He hit everything. Every time I looked when he shot I knew it was going in the net.”
BG outscored Male 25-11 in the second and led 43-21 at halftime.
Neither team presented much of an offensive rhythm in the third, as the Purples hit just three field goals to the Bulldogs’ two. It wouldn’t be a problem, though.
Bowling Green went on to add 20 more points to its side of the scoreboard in the final quarter and at one time led by as much as 30 before ending with a 24-point victory.
“I don’t think we have hit our ceiling yet,” Wilson added. “We just have to keep getting better and better.”
— Ballard 75, Chalmette (La.) 63: The finale of the prestigious Classic featured Western Kentucky signee Mitchell Robinson, who is a consensus five-star recruit and was recently tabbed a McDonald’s All-American and his Chalmette (La.) squad taking on No. 7 Ballard from Louisville.
With the stands filled with Hilltopper red, the 7-foot center put on a show and lived up to the expectations from his WKU supporters, as he scored 21 points while grabbing 9 rebounds and swatting 9 shots, despite losing 75-63 to the Bruins.
“It felt good to me,” Robinson said of playing in Bowling Green. “It’s real thrilling to come up here.”
Clivonte Patterson finished with 15 points and 11 rebounds for Ballard while Jamil Wilson added 8 points to help their club win its seventh-straight.
Ballard (22-5) held a 38-29 advantage at the break but the Owls cut the Bruins’ lead to three at 46-43 late at the 2:25 mark of the third quarter after a pair of Robinson free-throws. That’s as close as Robinson and company would get.
Ballard played tenacious defense all throughout the contest and forced Chalmette’s (19-10) guards into tough situations, as the Bruins racked up 16 steals on the day.
–Follow Sporting Times High School Insider Tyler Mansfield on Twitter @RealTMansfield—
