Date: Saturday, January 23 2010

Rebs 'Max' out against Central

By JIM STEELE, Editor pressbox1.com

McKENZIE, Tenn. - McKenzie's boys' basketball team seemed doomed from the outset. The Rebels trailed by six points in the final :45 of their basketball game with visiting Hollow Rock-Bruceton Central. This team had been close several times in tight games this year and never seemed to get over the hump. Until Friday night. The Rebels ramped up the intensity on defense, started to buy into everything they've worked on since school started and things finally came together. After a missed free throw from Central's Elijah Phillips with :04.9 left on the clock, junior Richie Clark secured the rebound, threw the outlet to Robert Taylor who found junior Max Arnold all alone under the bucket. Arnold caught the pass, squared up, took a step, a jump and released the ball with one-tenth of a second left as the Rebels rallied for a 44-43 homecoming victory. Upon hitting the shot, Arnold was mobbed by his teammate and the student body, who rushed the floor after the buzzer. "Man, I don't know who threw it to me and I didn't even hear the buzzer," said Arnold, who was beaming with a big grin. "I thought we were looking for the three, but when I got it, I almost floated it up there; I'm glad I didn't now." McKenzie coach Chris Wyatt, who has been trying to sell his team on a concept and system, had suffered the effects of the flu earlier this week. "I'm feeling a whole lot better, now," he said with a smile. "We've been close and being down like we were, we could have folded, but this isn't anything we drew up; this was all the kids tonight. We got just about every break and we made breaks for ourselves. "We called time out and told them that we wanted a three if we were taking it out, but if we got a rebound, we're going to pass, pass and shoot," said Wyatt. "We didn't draw this up." The Rebels, who suffered an unmerciful wrath of the sizeable Central student body, fell behind 20-3 early in the second quarter and had problems impeding the efforts of Tiger center Chandler Jordan. For the Rebels, their effort was a slow burn as they chipped away point by point. In the final :36, McKenzie, trailing 43-37, drew closer on Robert Taylor's 25-foot three-pointer. The lead had been cut to three. Rebel pressure forced the ball out of bounds, but back to the Tigers. McKenzie coaxed a five-second call on the in-bound pass and regained possession. McKenzie stole the ball back after missed shot and Clark was right there to turn the gift into points with :08 to play. "Like I said, it wasn't something we drew up, but it was something incidental," said Wyatt. "Clark just stole it, turned around and shot it." McKenzie fouled Phillips with just under five seconds to play and he missed the front end of his free throw. That enabled the Rebs to move the ball down the floor in 4.8 seconds. "We're not only playing hard, we are mentally concentrating, which is a little more intense," said Wyatt. "This could be a momentum shift for us where now maybe we can win one.' Wyatt said when it was 20-3, he told them to keep battling. "In the first half, we were walking it up and they were waiting for us," said the coach. "In the second half, we shot better and did a good job on the press. And for us, the right players for them took the shots. We didn't want to let their three players hurt us." Before the game, Becky Jones was crowned homecoming queen. The Lady Rebels claimed a big 65-39 win in the opener. Jordan led all scorers with 21 points. Homer Willis scored eight, Hayden Williams seven, Aaron Runions scored five, and Trezden Tharpe added two. Taylor and Alex Pierce each scored 11 to lead the Rebels. Arnold had seven, Clark six, Shane Nunnery five, Luke Robertson and Trevor Willis two each.