With 2:25 left in the second half, LA Trade Tech guard Arta Turner dribbles near half court until the shot clock reads four. At that point, he jacks up a deep three with an EC defender’s hand right in his face.
Turner’s shot hits the bottom of the net, as his fifth three of the game puts his Beavers up 85-51.
It was that kind of a game on Friday for the EC Warriors men’s basketball team (6-11, 2-2 SCC-South), as seemingly everything that could go wrong did en route to a 92-60 home loss at the hands of the LA Trade Tech Beavers (4-16, 0-4 SCC-North).
Warriors coach Robert Uphoff listed the primary reasons for the team’s worst loss of the season as “[a lack of] effort, attitude, not being able to be coached” along with “poor leadership.” EC freshman guard Christopher Munoz echoed this statement saying, “We weren’t really playing as hard as we could.”
The lack of effort and unity is reflected in the Warriors’ 11-24 assist-to-turnover ratio, along with their 36.9% shooting from the field and 14.3% on 3-21 shots from behind the arc.
Another reason for the loss was the absence of defensive intensity by the Warriors. The 92 points scored by the Beavers was the most given up by EC all season, easily surpassing the previous mark of 72.
The Warriors allowed the Beavers to shoot 49.2% from the field and an impressive 60.0% from three. On the subject of the team’s defense, EC freshman forward Emmanuel Pope, who finished the game with a team-leading 15 points and 10 rebounds, stated, “Next game, we’ve got to come out and close out a lot more. We’ve got to go into practices with great energy.”
Uphoff’s reasoning as to why LA Trade Tech was able to dictate the pace of the game through fast breaks was, “We don’t play that style of ball.” Pope didn’t want to use the difference in scheme as an excuse, however, saying, “We were giving up easy transition buckets. We’ve got to play better transition defense.”
One positive the Warriors can take from the loss is their numbers on the boards, as they out-rebounded LATTC 49-36 throughout the course of the game.
The Warriors’s next game will be on Wednesday January 28 at Pasadena City College (8-12, 2-2 SCC-North) at 5 p.m.
