In game between premier boys basketball teams, St. Thomas More outlasts New Iberia, 59-54
By Mike Coppage
LAFAYETTE, La. - Two of the state's premier prep basketball programs - New Iberia and St. Thomas More - squared off in the eighth and final game of Brad Boyd's Cajundome Classic on Saturday at the University of Louisiana.
New Iberia, which holds the No. 1 power rating in non-select Division I, was trying to start a new winning streak after losing only its second game of the year at Southside on Friday.
STM, No. 2 in select Division I behind Scotlandville, was going for its 13th straight win. After trailing much of the game, the Cougars rallied with a red-hot fourth quarter to prevail, 59-54.
"I just love our team because we don't panic," STM coach Danny Broussard said. "We just do our thing. We've been playing such great defense lately. We've been guarding.
"That's what got us back into it, our man-to-man defense. We tried some 1-3-1, and it wasn't bad, but our man-to-man was great."
Wayne Randall-Bashay's bucket off a Kylan Dugas assist put the Yellow Jackets ahead, 40-35, with 20 seconds to go in the third quarter. Mason Guillory, who finished with 10 points, answered on the other end at the buzzer.
The Cougars (28-4) went on to score the first six points of the fourth quarter. STM moved ahead by five, 52-47, when a loose ball squirted into the waiting hands of 6-foot-8 junior Chad Jones with 2:30 remaining.
St. Thomas More's Chad Jones
New Iberia (25-3) countered with a 3-pointer from the left wing by point guard Austin Delahoussaye. The Cougars, who shot 15-of-18 from the free-throw line, ultimately clinched the win with six free throws.
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Jones, who scored 19 points, was 5-for-5 from the field in the fourth quarter. He added a free throw on an and-one.
Michael Mouton connected on 8-of-12 field goals en route to posting a game-high 19 points. The Cougars shot 87.5 percent (7-of-8) from the floor in the fourth quarter.
"NISH has beaten a lot of great teams like Liberty that we're going to see in the playoffs," Jones said. "It was great for us to be down at the end of the first quarter and at halftime and come back and win."
The Cougars made only one of their first seven shots from the floor in the second quarter and fell behind, 22-15. NISH sixth man Devin Frank knocked down consecutive 3-pointers in the quarter, and Randall-Bashay scored twice.
Frank was held scoreless from there, and NISH forward Jayden Westley was saddled with foul trouble for the remainder.
NISH shooting guard Christian Walker, the team's top scorer, was limited to seven points. Walker had a bucket in the first quarter before adding five points in the fourth.
"We started guarding better in the second half," Jones said. "We weren't blocking out in the first half, either. Once we settled in and started blocking out, our offense came with it and we pulled away in the end."
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The Cougars attempted several shots from 3-point range without much success in the first half before Mouton found success distributing the ball to Jones down low for high percentage shots. Mouton and Guillory had the Cougars' only 3-pointers, and both came in the first half.
"I told them before the game that this is a college 3-pointer," Broussard said. "We're not used to shooting that. Sure enough, we were settling for 3's. Once we got back into it, we started getting to the rim.
"Chad was big for us. We've been telling him that our guards are going to penetrate. We want him to go to the rim. He got there (Saturday). We made some great passes to him, and he finished."
Randall-Bashay, a 6-foot-5 junior, was the only double-digit scorer for the Yellow Jackets with 17 points. Frank finished with nine.
NISH, which maintained its No. 1 power rating despite the loss, concludes the regular season this week with games against Carencro (12-11) and Acadiana (4-25).
The Cougars, who remained No. 2 in their division, will face Northside (18-12) and Lafayette Christian (18-6).
