When you see the same hurdle enough times, the bar to clear it feels as if it’s inching lower and lower.
For Patterson Mill boys basketball, that hurdle is an opposing team’s box-and-one defense. Nearly every team the Huskies have faced — now five games into the season — has opted to spend portions of the contest in the zone defense intended to keep the ball out of a single player’s hands.
Jeroud Clark, now in year 17 coaching at Patterson Mill, can rattle off a list of former players who were defended with such intentionality (a couple even saw triangles-and-two). Drew Pape, a recent York College commit, is the latest to join the esteemed list. North Harford did its best to isolate the senior wing in the first half, but ultimately fell to the Huskies, 95-38.
The zone concept splits the half court into four assigned quadrants like a 2-2 zone. The fifth defender diligently sticks to Pape, never leaving his side as he maneuvered through the half court. That duty fell to junior Jamail Holmes and senior Ian Fox.
Pape finished with 12 points in the resounding win –– dipping under 17 for the first time this season. He was quiet for much of the first half. Clark called a set for him to open the second quarter that curled Pape off a screen for a layup. Pape took seven points into halftime with his teammates building what was then a 26-point lead.
It comes as no surprise opposing teams are keying in on Pape so staunchly.
Area coaches lauded his scoring ability at the outset of the season. One called him a “special talent.” Another termed the Huskies a top threat in the county because of Pape. And Hawks coach Nick Panos opted for it after watching Pape go for 30 in their last meeting on Dec. 5.
“We thought we’d try to slow him down a little bit,” Panos said. “I thought we did OK with that. The other guys on the team are quality players, too, so they stepped up and took care of business. … They’re really good at cutting through your zone and get a lot out of it.”
Clark’s philosophy –– since always, but it’s hard to miss in wins like this one –– is to fill gaps and prepare his players to read situations like ones where North Harford’s defense is designed to derail their top option.
“He’s a tremendous player, there’s no way around that,” Clark said. “But when you take something, you’re gonna give something. They went box and we scored 95. We’ve scored 70 against another [box-and-1] and 80 in another.”
In the final two minutes the longtime coach dissuaded his players from shooting the ball. He has a code: don’t score 100 on teams. “Never,” he said. “It’s one of my pet peeves.” Clark has had upwards of 15 or 20 teams inch to that century mark but has never let his group touch it. A past Huskies team once stopped at 99 — “way too close for me.”
In Wednesday’s dominating road win over the Hawks, it was Patterson Mill’s guard trio of Kai Gibson, Colin Luddy and James Kropp who shouldered the offensive load. Each brings something a bit different.
Gibson is often the quickest player on the court. “Warp speed fast,” Clark said. He can knock down the deep ball and leak out in transition. The sophomore finished with 12 points. Luddy is lanky and deceptively strong, able to operate through traffic. He went for 18. And Kropp, who chipped in 15, is wiry with quick hands as a plus perimeter defender.
“Each one of them brings their own little aspect of what works for us,” Clark said. “It’s fun.”
North Harford was paced by Jason Brady’s 13 points and seven more from Demetrious Densmore.
Panos thinks the Huskies are likely the best team they’ll face outside of C. Milton Wright. He added Perryville to that short list.
Patterson Mill has proven to have multiple options beyond its top scorer. But that won’t stop teams from throwing the kitchen sink at him.
“Everything that we do is reads,” Clark said. “It’s, what’s the defense is giving us and we’ll work off that. They doing something, we’ll have a counter to it. They take away something, we’ll have a counter for it. That’s what we do and what we work on in practice to give us options.”
