Thomas Changes Style and Taft Fashions Win

For most players, picking up foul No. 4 with 2 1/2 minutes left in the third quarter means it is a cinch that one of the following will take place:

The whistle sounds and the coach, like Pavlov’s dogs, salivates. In most cases, the coach then chews off the player’s ear.

The player pleads his case to the coach with no success and spends the next few minutes sitting beside the not-ready-for-prime-time players.

In rare instances, the coach chews off a fingernail and, out of desperation, decides to stick with the player.

In Taft’s Northwest Valley Conference game against El Camino Real on Wednesday, Taft Coach Jim Woodard went for Plan 3, and it paid off. The offender, senior guard Dedan Thomas, scored 7 points in the final 2:31 of the third quarter to lead Taft to a 76-57 win at El Camino Real.

Woodard admitted that no alternatives came to mind when Thomas was called for his fourth foul with more than 10 minutes left in the game and Taft holding a 42-30 lead. In fact, Woodard had made up his mind before the whistle had stopped blowing.

“We can’t play without him,” Woodard said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I was afraid they’d catch up in about three minutes with him out of there.”

Out of pure self-preservation, Woodard told Thomas to relax on defense. No problem, Thomas said. Woodard ordered Thomas to not risk a charging foul and to stop driving to the basket for layups. That caused big problems--for El Camino Real.

Thomas made 3 consecutive jump shots from the 17-foot range and added a free throw to key an 11-3 run that gave Taft (14-1, 4-0 in league play) a commanding 53-36 lead after 3 quarters. His style tempered by the fouls, Thomas went through his list of options and chose the outside shot, which heretofore has not been his hallmark.

“It made me have to shoot jump shots,” Thomas said about the foul trouble. “(Woodard) told me to drive in as far as I could, then pull up, so I did.”

Thomas’ trio of long-rangers knocked out El Camino Real, which was already on the ropes after a series of critical third-quarter mistakes.

El Camino Real (4-7, 1-3) trailed, 31-17, at halftime but rallied to within 33-25 with 5:08 left in the third quarter. After fouling Taft center Jason Deyoe, forward Charlie Crow was called for a technical with 4:26 remaining. Deyoe, Tony Middleton (16 points, 9 rebounds) and Thomas each made a free throw to give Taft an 11-point lead.

Russell Reid made a 3-point shot on El Camino Real’s next possession to again cut the deficit to 8. Reid’s basket was only the second scored by a Conquistadore other than senior forward Brent Lofton, who finished with a season-high 32 points on 14-of-27 shooting. Reid snapped a streak in which Lofton, who was playing his second game since fainting at home because of malnutrition, had scored 7 consecutive team field goals.

Although he almost single-handedly kept El Camino Real in striking range, Lofton also committed a miscue that bolstered Taft’s momentum late in the third quarter. Lofton picked up his fourth foul with 39 seconds left but left the floor before a referee waved a substitute into the game, triggering a technical. Deyoe made his 2 foul shots, added 2 more from the technical, and, on the ensuing possession, Thomas hit a 17-foot jump shot to give Taft a 53-36 lead.

Taft employed a zone defense all game, hardly a surprise to El Camino Real Coach Mike McNulty, who spent Tuesday’s practice schooling the team on how to break up the rather rudimentary defensive set.

He had a rude awakening.

“We drilled, drilled and drilled,” McNulty said as he drilled the team verbally. “I don’t understand it. We stand out there on the wing all game long and stare at the open man in the post, and we don’t get the ball in to him.”

El Camino Real center Jason Steele, in fact, scored only 2 points. Other than Lofton, no Conquistadore scored more than 4 points.