Boys Champs
McCallie tops Brainerd, repeats as Best of Preps champs [photos]
Wes Moore has played and seen enough basketball in his life to know that letting Mya Long get open shots is not a sound game plan when facing the Baylor Lady Red Raiders.
Long had just drained an open 3-pointer in the early moments of the second half of Friday night's Best of Preps tournament girls' championship game - three of her game-high 14 points in the 43-30 Baylor win - when the GPS coach shouted out what everyone in the Chattanooga State gym already knew.
"That's too easy for her!" Moore yelled after the shot that put the Lady Raiders up 22-13. "She's too good a shooter to do that."
The advice didn't help as the future UTC guard hit another 3-pointer on the next trip down the court before bringing the crowd to its feet with a strong crossover dribble and short jump shot for a 27-16 lead. Long's strong play, which included a virtuoso defensive effort against GPS star Brooke McCurdy, earned her the most valuable player honor as Baylor (6-4) won its fifth consecutive BOP title.
"There's a reason why she's going to UTC," Baylor coach John Gibson praised. "She's starting to come into her own, and she's adding things to her game.
"That was pretty selfless for her to lock somebody down for 32 minutes and absolutely work the entire time and not relent once. That's hard to get kids to do that because they only see what goes in the scorebook. We didn't give up many easy buckets and we were not going to leave Brooke open, because she will knock down shots. If they were going to beat us, it was about her getting shots."
McCurdy was limited to six points, including a 3-pointer late in the first period that gave GPS its only lead of the game, 7-6. Baylor scored the next 11 points to take control of the low-scoring meeting of Division II-AA rivals, with Grace Wardeberg scoring four and Long assisting on two of the baskets while adding a layup off a nifty pass from JuToreya Willis.
GPS (8-4), which trailed 19-11 at halftime, got a spark from reserve Meg Priest in the third quarter, twice cutting the lead to eight, but Willis ended the period with a three-point play to quiet the rally and the Bruisers never got any closer than nine the rest of the way.
"It was a typical rivalry game," Gibson said. "They put it on the floor and tried to break us down, but we worked hard defensively and only gave up, what, 30 points? That was right in our wheelhouse. We just didn't knock down as many shots as we have been, but give them all the credit in the world."
Long, one of two starters back from last year's Baylor team, said the tournament hopefully would spark the Lady Raiders after a slow start.
"We didn't start the season as good as it could have been," she said, "but this is traditionally our tournament and we had to pick it up this week, especially tonight against our rivals. We had to pick it up because we lost four seniors from last year and we didn't want to be the team that lost here."
Willis added 10 points and Cheyenne Lindsey had nine rebounds for Baylor, while J.J. Dunigan topped GPS with 10 points.
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6296; follow on Twitter @youngsports22