AUBURN — Learning to play against aggressive defenders is something the Edward Little boys basketball team will work on in the final third of the regular season.
That exactly what the Red Eddies (6-5) faced Saturday in a 52-31 loss to Portland in a Class AA North matchup.
“Yeah, 100%, and credit to Portland,” Edward Little coach Jamie Philbrook said. “You know, they’re obviously well-coached. (Portland coach Joe) Russo always gets the best out of every single one of his guys. They’re up in our face, and we knew that coming in. We just didn’t do a good job of handling it. Part of that’s on me. I guess I’ve got to do an even better job. But, you know, when they’re up in our face and taking us out of our offense, it was tough for our guys.”
Portland had strong defensive efforts by Loic Ramazani (nine steals), Devin Walker and Benilson Lumani (six blocks).
The Bulldogs (6-6) said there’s not much mystery about what they need to do to be successful.
“Of course, I would say our defense. We started off hot, and me just getting on the ball, ball pressure, and my teammates reacting to that. I feel like that was a big game changer for sure,” Ramazani said.
Portland is at its best when it’s disrupting opposing point guards. Russo said Ramazani is coming around to being that disruptor.
“We kind of put him on the ball just to disrupt the flow,” Russo said. “The rest of the guys have to feed off that, get the loose balls. And he’s been doing that. … If he can stay healthy and energetic, he’s our focal point on defense.”
Luke LeGage, who had a team-high 15 points for Portland, said the Bulldogs play their best basketball when they are getting steals, rebounds and blocks.
“You know, when we go out there with energy and, you know, we play hard and we talk and we communicate, it’s hard to beat us,” LeGage said.
Clean up sloppiness
Both teams look to play more efficient basketball as the regular season winds down.
Despite playing well defensively, Russo said the Bulldogs were in too much of a hurry to push the ball up the floor, which led to turnovers of their own.
“We always want to look ahead, have basket pressure,” Russo said. “But we try to preach if it’s not there, you don’t have to pass it. You have to look, but you don’t have to pass. I think their youthfulness, they lose their patience, and they want to make that great play, and they don’t really need to.”
Ramazani, who scored 13 points, knows what’s coming at the next film session.
“Definitely our fast break,” Ramazani said. “I feel like we should have had more points on the fast break. We got a lot of turnovers, and we let up a lot of rebounds that we should have had that could have led to two points.”
Philbrook said the Red Eddies were also sloppy and couldn’t get into an offensive rhythm. Edward Little had only 18 points through three quarters.
Turnovers have been a problem lately for the Red Eddies.
“Yeah, I think we’ve been stressing a lot about patience, too, because turnovers have been … pretty prevalent these past couple of games,” Philbrook said. Just being patient and making the easy pass and not trying to make that home run pass through traffic every single time. We’re certainly struggling with that. But the patience has been the biggest thing that we need to do a better job of.”
Akol Maiwan scored 13 points for Edward Little. Diing Maiwan didn’t play for the Red Eddies, and it’s undecided if he will return Tuesday against Lewiston.
“He’s an all-state player, and anytime you get an all-state player not in the game, it’s gonna impact you,” Philbrook said. “He impacts both sides of the floor. So it definitely hurt us today.”
