For one half, the tempo and the game belonged to the Carson Senators.
Unfortunately, basketball games have two halves, and the Senators were nowhere to be seen in the final 16 minutes.
Carson hit only 3 of 13 from the floor and turned the ball over eight times in the second half en route to a 45-33 loss to Reno in a Sierra League boys basketball game Friday night at Morse Burley Gymnasium.
If you follow Carson basketball, you know the Senators have a knack of going through a four or five minute meltdown in which the game gets away from them.
"I wouldn't call this a meltdown," Carson coach Bruce Barnes said. "We just didn't score for a while. Offensively, we couldn't put it in the basket."
That's a huge understatement.
Carson (2-2 league, 6-14 overall) led 26-17 after scoring the first basket of the second half, but went without a basket for 5 1/2 minutes, enabling Reno, thanks to four points by J.J. Mulligan and a three-point play by Jeremy Lattin, to tie the game at 28. Brian Welch (15 points) scored on a nice spin move in the lane to give Carson its last lead of the game, 30-28, with 1:56 left in the third quarter.
Reno (3-0, 10-8) scored the final four points of the period and outscored Carson 10-1 to open the fourth quarter.
After Welch's score, Carson didn't score its next basket until John Gradert scored with 22 seconds left in the game, ending a 9 1/2 minute drought. Reno went on a 15-1 run in that stretch to make shambles of what started out to be a great game. Carson turned the ball over seven times in that second drought, leading to seven points. That doesn't, and never will, get it done.
"I thought we were still getting decent shots," said Barnes, who planned to review tapes to specifically look at what happened offensively.
Part of the credit should go to league-leading Reno.
The Huskies began to pressure Carson, forcing the Senators to start their offense out higher than Barnes would have liked. The taller Huskies began to pound the offensive glass, working over the smaller Senators up front. In their aforementioned run at the outset of the third quarter, the Huskies had three putbacks.
"I think our defensive intensity picked up in the second half," Reno coach Eric Swain said. "We're an up-tempo team, and we weren't getting any fast-break points in the first half. We turned up the pressure, got a couple of steals and (got) easy baskets and started getting into a flow offensively.
"Carson is as good as anybody in the North. We knew this was going to be a dogfight coming in."
The tempo of the second half was a far cry from the tempo in the first 16 minutes. Carson was in no hurry, preferring to make the taller Huskies guard them hard on every possession.
That was by design, according to Barnes.
"I told the guys we wanted to keep it (the score) in the 40s and no higher than the low 50s," the Carson coach said. "We did that because of their size."
"I told my guys that if the score was in the high 30s or mid-40s it would be to their advantage."
Carson's Kyle Bacon gave the Senators an 8-7 lead after one period, and Kevin Brush and Welch led an 11-4 surge to give Carson a 19-15 lead with 3:02 left in the half. After a Reno basket, Brush hit a three-pointer and Bacon scored in the lane to make it 24-17.
Carson's 2-3 zone gave Reno fits in the first 16 minutes, as the Huskies hit a dismal 9 for 25 (36 percent). Mulligan (4 points) and Lattin (2 points) were held in check.
That changed in the second half, as the duo combined for 14 of Reno's 28 second-half points.
Darrell Moody can be reached at dmoody@nevadaappeal.com, or by calling 881-1281
