Hubbard defense propels third win, 77-46

By Doug Chapin

CHAMPION — Hubbard High basketball coach Rick Fox spent halftime Friday night talking about defense.

After watching his Eagles allow a short-handed Champion team to reduce a 26-10 first-quarter deficit to 38-27 by intermission, Fox “spoke” to his players about defense in the locker room.

When the teams returned to the court, he wondered aloud at the scorer’s table whether anyone knew anything about playing defense.

Apparently, his players had learned something as they went out in the third quarter and held Champion to just two points on the way to a 77-46 rout of the Golden Flashes (0-2).

“The third quarter was probably our best defensive quarter, in scrimmages and through the first two games,” Fox said. “I kind of got into the kids at halftime.

“We tend to jump up on teams and then get lazy on defense,” Chapin said. “We’ve got a nice offensive team, but we’ve got to pick it up on the defensive end.”

The Eagles (3-0) scored 17 points themselves in the third quarter to open a 55-29 advantage. Hubbard pushed the ball down the floor at every opportunity, resulting in several easy baskets.

“We’ve been averaging around 80 points a game,” Fox said. “We know with the athletes we have, and having [Sam] Bellino back at point guard — he missed all of last year with a torn ACL — we can push the ball. We’ve been doing a nice job so far.”

Champion was dealing with the fact that senior starting guards Derek Sumner and Tyler Day did not play because they were ill. In addition, senior center Caleb Wright was in and out of the game with a thumb injury he suffered in Champion’s first game.

“Our juniors need to play better,” Champion coach Dan Bubon said. “They are going to be good players, but they are playing a lot more minutes right now than we anticipated.

“They were going to be role players, we were going to work them in, but they’ve been thrown in there with more minutes,” Bubon said. “But that’s not an excuse, they’ve got to do it.”

The Eagles shot 48 percent (28-of-58) from the floor, including 47 percent (9-of-19) from 3-point range. Hubbard had a 33-21 rebounding edge and had three players with five or more assists.

Kurtis Drummond led the attack with 22 points and five assists; Bellino contributed 14 points, seven assists and five steals; Bobby Thompson had 14 points and six rebounds; Cory Farcas scored nine points, grabbed eight rebounds and dished out five assists; and Mike Lopuchovsky added seven points and seven rebounds.

David Barnes paced Champion with 13 points, Mike Smith scored 10 points and Dan Gelet had seven points and seven rebounds.

“Coming here to play at Champion, it’s a hard place to play,” Fox said. “They are scrappy and Coach Bubon has them playing hard.

“In my four years, this is our first win here at Champion,” Fox said. “I told the kids that even if they have two kids out they are going to play hard, and they hung around with us in the first half.”

Bubon said when things get back to normal for the Flashes, he thinks they will be OK.

“We haven’t played a league game yet and I think we can be there in our district. As weird as it sounds after getting beat by 31 in our home opener, I really think we’ll be fine,” he said. “I will be shocked if we don’t finish above .500. Once all these guys get back, and our younger guys start to grow a little bit and get more relaxed, I think we’ll be fine.”