Burbank boys’ basketball bounces back, earns victory against L.A. Marshall
BURBANK — Burbank High boys’ basketball Coach Jamayne Potts was anxious to see how his team would rebound Thursday after suffering a loss a day earlier in the Burbank Winter Tournament.
In a loss Wednesday to Westlake, Potts said his team was “outplayed, outworked and was timid and careless.”
Although the Bulldogs were able to bounce back and earn a 57-45 pool-play victory Thursday against Los Angeles Marshall at home, the coach said there is still a great deal his team needs to work on.
“I still see a whole lot of things that we need to improve on right now,” said Potts, whose squad was defeated by Westlake, 73-59. “One of the areas we need work on is our free-throw shooting and our three-point shooting is another. Both of those percentages have been pretty poor the last two games. We just have to get better in both those areas.”
Against Westlake, the Bulldogs (2-1) missed half of their free-throw attempts. Against Marshall (1-3), Burbank converted 16 of 25 from the charity stripe.
“It was a tough loss [Wednesday] and I don’t think we were happy at all with our effort,” said Burbank senior Cameron Sweeten, who scored a game-high 22 points to go along with four rebounds and two assists. “After that loss, we didn’t hang our heads too long, because we knew we needed to put that behind us.
“We’re just going out here every day working and trying to get better as a team. It’s a long season, so you have to fight through those losses and move on.”
Burbank never trailed in the game and the Bulldogs had several opportunities to build on leads and make things tough for the Barristers. But time and time again, Marshall battled back to get within striking distance of the lead.
Most of those surges by the Barristers were spearheaded by junior Ingacio Garcia, who had a team-high 17 points, including five-three pointers.
The Bulldogs took a 9-2 lead with 2:43 left in the first quarter on a three-pointer by senior Thomas Clark (seven points). Burbank maintained a seven-point cushion, 11-4, after one quarter.
Burbank pushed the lead to 16-8 with 4:16 remaining in the second quarter before Marshall pushed back with a seven-point run to trim the deficit to just 16-15 with 1:53 left. At that point, the Bulldogs converted just one of seven shots from the field.
But Burbank responded and went up at the half, 23-17.
“I gave L.A. Marshall some credit for pushing us,” Potts said. “They won their league last season and they had a lot of confidence early. They were able to carry that confidence over from the first half to the second half and we had some problems with them.”
Burbank opened the third quarter on a five-point run and enjoyed a 28-17 cushion after a steal and basket by Sweeten with 7:24 left. But the Barristers kept themselves in the game and trailed, 38-31, after three.
With 5:16 remaining in the game, Marshall made it a four-point contest, 44-40, on a three-pointer by Garcia. But that was as close as Marshall would get, as the Bulldogs finished the game on a 13-5 run.
