The proverbial turnover bug was the bee in the Iola boys basketball bonnets Wednesday as they fell 68-52 to Sabetha in the opening round of the Burlington Invitational Tournament.
The Mustangs walked away with 16 turnovers which equaled their number of rebounds and dwarfed their 11 assists.
“They were dumb turnovers, too,” head coach Luke Bycroft said. “Unforced turnovers. Just silly, mental mistakes. The same thing that got us early started happening again when we cut into their lead. We were down big and then got back in it and then immediately started giving the ball away.
“I told them after the game that I didn’t question their toughness or effort. But we have to be smarter. We have to make better decisions with the ball, we have to make better decisions defensively. When you have more turnovers than rebounds in a game, you don’t win many games.”
The Mustangs seemed doomed to repeat Friday night’s beating from Wellsville as the Bluejays rendered the Iola offense a mess, scoring just nine points in the first quarter and 21 points in the first half.
Sabetha’s zone successfully forced the Mustangs to run everything through senior posts Evan Sigg and Ethan Holloway who had all but two of Iola’s points at the half.
“They ran a zone and sunk down in the middle and forced our guards to make shots,” Bycroft said. “And for awhile that worked and then we hit a couple of shots and then they stretched it out. They were one of the bigger teams that we’ve played this year.”
Sigg had 17 points for the Mustangs in the loss while Holloway joined him in double-figures with 10 points.
Coming out of the half it seemed like nothing had changed. Sabetha slowly but surely kept pushing the lead closer and closer to 20 points but as the quarter ran down, the first two threes of the game for Iola came from sophomore Cal Leonard.
Junior guard Blake Ashmore opened the fourth quarter with another three to top off an 11-0 run that cut the Bluejay lead to just seven points with seven minutes to play.
But as soon as some hope came streaming in through the cracks, the Mustangs dashed it all away again with more turnovers as Sabetha opened the game back up on the back of an 8-0 run.
Whether it’s been scoring or turning the ball over, guard play has been the thing the Mustangs have struggled with the most ever since senior guard Carle Barnhart and junior Derek Bycroft went out with injuries over winter break. The Mustangs are still having trouble finding answers without those two on the court.
“Our rotations are different right now and some of the struggles come from that,” Bycroft said. “Derek and Cale handled the ball a lot over the past several years for this group. Now guys that weren’t primarily ball-handlers are and that changes their role. It changes how much effort you put in offensively. You have to work a lot harder to get the ball up the court against pressure and then you have to turn around and play defense like you normally would. It’s more challenging mentally and physically.”
Ashmore hit two more threes in the fourth quarter to help Iola try to kick and scratch their way back but to no avail.
“These kids play hard,” Bycroft said. “And until they quit that, I will say it every time. They work hard and they compete.”
With the loss, Iola is now 5-4 this season. The Mustangs will return to Burlington on Friday and face old SEK league foe Independence who has won just one game this season.
