Going into the season, Allen Community College coach Todd Buchanan knew he was going to have some growing pains with a team that only has one returner on it from a year ago and features nine freshmen, but the veteran coach didn’t expect to be questioning the things he is after a 77-62 loss to a Labette County Community College team that won only two games all year last season.
“We hold our heads and we don’t play hard at times,” Buchanan said. “We sit there and contemplate if we did or didn’t foul, or who made a mistake instead of picking each other up. We have too much finger-pointing going on.
“It is to the point now where we are selfish.”
The Red Devils fell behind early against the Cardinals, but rallied late in the first quarter.
Trailing 11-6, Allen’s Kendra Houston scored and the team’s only returner DaMonica Franklin put in two free throws to cut the lead to 11-10 with 1:26 left in the period.
Freshman point guard Tamera Shaver owned the final minute of the quarter for Allen.
She got a steal and lay-up to give Allen the lead at 12-11. Moments later, she hit a corner three with 28 seconds left to extend the lead to four points.
After a Labette County free throw, Shaver ended the quarter with a put-back lay-up where she drew the foul and executed the and-one.
The three points gave Allen a 18-12 lead after the first quarter, but unfortunately for the home squad, that would be the largest the lead ever got.
The Cardinals rattled off seven-straight points to begin the second quarter and they turned up the pressure on the inexperienced Red Devils.
“We have gone over (pressure) since week one and we went over it again in shoot-around and I felt as good as I’ve been able to feel about it,” Buchanan said. “I told them that the whole game was predicated on three things: our ability to break the press, our ability to rebound and make them one-and-done and to score off their press.”
Allen had 22 turnovers and gave up 21 offensive rebounds.
“I felt like the wheels came off at really inopportune times,” Buchanan said. “We got away from our execution.”
The Red Devils inserted their two point guard lineup and played Kamri Summons with Shaver and retook the lead briefly at 24-19 after four points from Summons and a basket from Franklin.
“We needed to be more athletic and we need another ball handler,” Buchanan said. “I thought (Summons) handled things quite well for the most part.”
The Cardinals went on a 12-point surge to retake the lead a 31-24.
Another Summons basket cut the margin to 34-30, but Labette County ended the half with a basket and a seven-point lead.
The two teams went back and forth after the intermission with the lead bouncing between five and nine points, until an eight-point Cardinal run gave them a 56-41 lead in the waning moments of the third quarter.
A Franklin bucket to end the third quarter and a Shaver three to open the fourth got the Red Devils back within ten, but the team could get no closer than that.
With its lead at 61-50, Labette County went on a 10-2 run to build a 19-point lead.
Houston hit a pair of three-pointers late to try to get Allen back into the game, but the Red Devils were never able to get within single digits again and the Cardinals cruised to a 77-62 win.
“It is what it is right now,” Buchanan said.
Shaver led team with 13 points and she also added six rebounds and a pair of steals from her point guard spot.
Houston and Katelyn Swanson each added 10 points while Franklin had a well-rounded game with nine points, eight rebounds, four steals and two assists.
The Red Devils only shoot 6-of-25 from three-point range.
“I think it is completely mental,” Buchanan said. “We are so psyched out right now, we can just catch it and shoot it. The other part is that some of those shot selections just aren’t good. We need to know the time of the game and situation of the game.”
Allen will next be in action on Saturday when they open conference play against Coffeyville Community College on the road.
“They are a very good team,” Buchanan said. “The breath of fresh air is that we are starting conference and we can say that this was out learning curve. You take it and you have to improve on it.”
Buchanan says goals going into the conference season are simple.
“The thing I write on the board are that we need to play our (butts) off every game,” Buchanan said.
Red Devils looking for answers
