MOORE — Mac boys basketball coach Marco Gagliardi summed it up perfectly after No. 3 Carl Albert ended his team’s season in the Class 5A Area consolation tournament.
“They are just better than us.”
The Titans took control early and never relented, handing the Highlanders a 90-47 loss at Moore High School on Friday night. Mac finished the season with a 13-11 record, losing seven of its final 10 games.
Carl Albert faces El Reno at 6:30 p.m. Saturday night in the Area consolation championship at Edmond North, with the winner advancing to the state tournament next weekend.
Things looked promising in the beginning as one of the Titans’ stars, Mason Harrell, recorded three fouls in the opening minutes, allowing the Highlanders to go on a 12-4 run behind sophomore sensation Sep Reese to take a 12-11 lead. However, that advantage was short-lived.
Trey’von Hopkins asserted his dominance on the game, leading Carl Albert on a 21-4 run well into the second quarter, and the rout was on from there. By halftime, Titans had built a 16-point lead thanks to Hopkins’ 22 points.
“Momentum is a crazy thing,” Gagliardi said. “We made shots early, probably started 4-of-7, but we didn’t make those shots later on. (Hopkins) just took over. We just couldn’t stop him. We doubled him, we manned him, we zoned him, but that’s why he’s scored 2,000 career points.
“When we got behind, we quit competing because we were down 20. Things weren’t going our way, and we have to do a better job in the offseason of playing hard, regardless. Diving to get balls, whatever we can do.”
Hopkins finished the night with 32 points, including seven 3-pointers.
Reese was only one point behind Hopkins in the scoring category at halftime with 21, 70 percent of Mac’s first half points. Unfortunately, Carl Albert was ready for him in the second half, holding him to only four points.
Reese finished with a double-double of 25 points and 10 rebounds in the loss.
Gagliardi said Reese simply ran out of energy because he was having to do so much to keep the Highlanders in the game.
“You can’t keep that up,” Gagliardi said of Reese’s first-half performance. Somebody else has to make a play besides him. He’s not going to go score 50 or 60. Could he? Possibly, but the chances of that aren’t high. We need others to make plays. A lot of people got good shots, but they didn’t go in.
With Reese and the offense struggling, the Titans easily pulled away down the stretch, outscoring Mac 44-17 in the final 16 minutes.
“At the end of the day, you have to score points to win this game,” Gagliardi said. “You can’t give up 90, and you can’t score 40. We were hoping we could hold them to 65, but we just weren’t able to.”
Despite the disappointing end to the season, Gagliardi was in high spirits.
Mac loses key players in Williams Bryant, Ja’Sean Carter, Jalen Jackson and Rylan Webb to graduation this year, but it also returns nearly half of this year’s roster, including the likes of Reese, Danquez Dawsey and Nasir Kemper.
Gagliardi said the pieces are there to be successful come next season, but everyone must work hard if they want to see improvements on the court and in the team’s winning percentage.
“We’re still young, but we can’t rest on that,” Gagliardi said. “We can’t be in this position next year saying, ‘Oh, we were close’, we have to get better. Yeah, we’re young, but I’ve seen players not get better in four years. Everybody has to evaluate themselves and figure out how we can get better. Everybody — coaches and players.
“I told the kids this is a big, big, big environment, and not many kids have been in this kind of environment. We played some freshmen and played some sophomores, and it was a good learning experience for us.”