78th Annual Carthage Invitational 3rd Place: (2) Carthage 68 (4) Webb City 65 - Final
- Thread starter carthagefan2006
- Start date
Well CJ isn’t in the COC and if Webb gets a couple players back that will help them. Overall though both teams have a long ways to go to be competitive with the top of the COC.
That's going to take some getting used to...i was just thinking Joplin area in general.
Does Webb have starters out other than the obvious one?
Correct! DeGradfenried will be back, I think Webb is hopeful about Gabe but it’s a wait and see. Those 2 would make a difference.
When healthy, Webb could be the 3rd best team in the West behind Parkview and Republic and slightly ahead of Willard. Here's my take from the 3 teams I saw in the tournament:
Carthage: Still working to find an identity on offense without the superior guard play of Justin Ray and/or Max Templeman that they've had the last 4-5 years. They do bring back players 2-6 from a 7 man rotation a year ago. Colt Pugh and Jordan Brunnert also got a few varsity minutes last year outside of garbage time. If they end up sharing the scoring like they did in the season opener against Nevada, they could struggle. I don't think they can rely on 6-7 players to score half a dozen a night to fill out the scoring column. They can weather the bad shooting nights if they can avoid turnovers especially so many close to midcourt. This gave other teams opportunities for a lot of transition buckets. They do well rebounding despite their lack of size. Webb is about the only team they will match up with height wise and Carthage scored a lot of second chance points throughout the tournament especially in the 3rd place game. They closed out the tournament nicely with 28 from Dylan Pugh and a quiet 18 from Landon Ray.
Joplin: Still working on rebuilding after the mess that was left once the Wright brothers departed the program. Pfeifer is a good coach to do that with, but Joplin doesn't seem to have any standout leaders at the moment. They were only 4-23 last year, but still lost some good size with Hafer's graduation and another big or two. They struggled to put together complete games throughout the tournament. They blew a 17-point lead late in the 3rd quarter to lose to Carl Junction in Double Overtime. They let Nevada jump out to a 17-0 lead and a lead by as many as 19 points at 22-3 late in the first quarter. Joplin swung the pendulum 25 points in the other direction to lead by as many as 6, but ended up failing to close out against Nevada as well. They also let Leavenworth hang around a while after seemingly putting the game in cruise control like they did against Carl Junction. They have a talented sophomore class, but not many of those players play varsity. Fred Taylor is a 3rd year player on varsity as a junior and they can rely on his experience.
Webb City: Plays a very physical brand of basketball, but this seems to hurt them with foul trouble with just a seven man rotation. They are solid all seven players deep and may be eight or nine deep once everyone is healthy. They were forced to choose between leaving players in early with three or four fouls or going deeper into their rotation as they often found themselves with multiple players in foul trouble. This seemed to hurt them when forced to play more cautiously on defense. Their up-tempo offense though can help them put up points in a hurry once they get everything clicking. They looked to get better as the tournament went along and their opener against Southside will probably be their worst-played game of the season once all is said and done.
Carthage: Still working to find an identity on offense without the superior guard play of Justin Ray and/or Max Templeman that they've had the last 4-5 years. They do bring back players 2-6 from a 7 man rotation a year ago. Colt Pugh and Jordan Brunnert also got a few varsity minutes last year outside of garbage time. If they end up sharing the scoring like they did in the season opener against Nevada, they could struggle. I don't think they can rely on 6-7 players to score half a dozen a night to fill out the scoring column. They can weather the bad shooting nights if they can avoid turnovers especially so many close to midcourt. This gave other teams opportunities for a lot of transition buckets. They do well rebounding despite their lack of size. Webb is about the only team they will match up with height wise and Carthage scored a lot of second chance points throughout the tournament especially in the 3rd place game. They closed out the tournament nicely with 28 from Dylan Pugh and a quiet 18 from Landon Ray.
Joplin: Still working on rebuilding after the mess that was left once the Wright brothers departed the program. Pfeifer is a good coach to do that with, but Joplin doesn't seem to have any standout leaders at the moment. They were only 4-23 last year, but still lost some good size with Hafer's graduation and another big or two. They struggled to put together complete games throughout the tournament. They blew a 17-point lead late in the 3rd quarter to lose to Carl Junction in Double Overtime. They let Nevada jump out to a 17-0 lead and a lead by as many as 19 points at 22-3 late in the first quarter. Joplin swung the pendulum 25 points in the other direction to lead by as many as 6, but ended up failing to close out against Nevada as well. They also let Leavenworth hang around a while after seemingly putting the game in cruise control like they did against Carl Junction. They have a talented sophomore class, but not many of those players play varsity. Fred Taylor is a 3rd year player on varsity as a junior and they can rely on his experience.
Webb City: Plays a very physical brand of basketball, but this seems to hurt them with foul trouble with just a seven man rotation. They are solid all seven players deep and may be eight or nine deep once everyone is healthy. They were forced to choose between leaving players in early with three or four fouls or going deeper into their rotation as they often found themselves with multiple players in foul trouble. This seemed to hurt them when forced to play more cautiously on defense. Their up-tempo offense though can help them put up points in a hurry once they get everything clicking. They looked to get better as the tournament went along and their opener against Southside will probably be their worst-played game of the season once all is said and done.
