For most of their basketball game Tuesday night against McCallie, the Tyner Rams looked as though they didn’t belong on the same court as the highly touted Blue Tornado.
But coach Gerald Harris preaches to his team to “never give up,” and they followed the preaching.
The Rams outscored McCallie 17-5 in the final 3:50, and their defense and free-throw shooting provided the difference in a 55-51 victory in a Hall of Fame game at GPS.
Travis Jones scored 14 points to lead the victors. Cordell James had 17 points to lead McCallie, which led by as many as 14 points but was never able to take full control of the game against the visitors.
“To never give up is just the mentality of this team,” Harris said. “We take things one possession at a time.
“We had a lot of guys just come out from football, so we didn’t run much of our stuff, but playing man-to-man defense takes effort and courage. I thought we did that tonight.”
The Rams had only 16 field goals but were 21-for-29 from the foul line.
“Our saving grace tonight was our Achilles’ heel last year,” Harris said of the free-throw shooting.
McCallie was sometimes wild, sometimes erratic and sometimes spectacular in building an eight-point fourth-quarter advantage. Terrance O’Donohue had follow-up slams in each half; Jay Meacham had a dunk over a Tyner defender; and C.J. Reese – a transfer from Atlanta – had some highlight moves from his point guard position.
Tyner stayed steady, however, and with under four minutes remaining got Dee Suttles untracked, as the guard had a transition layup and a 3-pointer to trim the lead to 48-43. Trey Suttles then scored twice inside, the second time tying the game at 49, and Tyner took the lead on two free throws by Travis Jones with 1:08 remaining.
Reese and Terrance Wilson had crucial misses in the final minute, and the Rams held on for the victory.
Travis Murphy scored 11 for Tyner (1-0). O’Donohue had 14 points and Reese added 11 for McCallie, who was minus leading scorer and rebounder Chad Lee (back) and just gained half of its team from football on Monday.
“We controlled the entire game up until the last five minutes,” McCallie coach Dan Wadley said. “We didn’t protect the ball, we didn’t rebound and we didn’t hit free throws.
“We have a lot of good pieces, but we still have a lot of work to do to get where we want to go.”