The Putnam County boys basketball team started the regular season with a 2-0 record.
However, sixth-year head coach Patrick Marshall believes his team is still working on areas it aimed to improve during the offseason. He’s tried to get his players to understand the importance of battling complacency, but believes that they’ve been “going through the motions” in the first few games of the season.
“I think we came out taking everything as normal. Like I’ve talked about before, my biggest thing was going to be us not being complacent and not just going through the motions,” Marshall said. “I think we came out playing like that, not like last year and we’ve been going through the motions. I’m not saying we’re not taking it seriously, but I don’t think we’ve had the same energy that we had last year, not knowing everybody was coming for us.”
Marshall feels like his team let its foot off the gas in its first game of the season.
The War Eagles hosted Morgan County for the season opener on Nov. 20, winning 81-80, but it wasn’t a close game at the half. They built up a 40-29 lead over the Dogs by the intermission and had all of the momentum.
Morgan County heated up from the field, scoring 51 points in the second half, but ultimately fell short in the end.
Marshall wasn’t pleased with his team’s performance in the final two quarters against the Dogs.
“As I said, our biggest thing is we just let our foot off the gas,” Putnam County’s coach said. “Sometimes I think we just were playing and going through the motions, just thinking the other team would just lie down.”
The War Eagles entered the season as the top-ranked team in Class A Division I by SandysSpiel.com. In the offseason, Marshall preached to his players about finishing games, emphasizing that no lead is ever safe.
According to Marshall, his team did take a step in the right direction against Hancock Central.
Putnam County defeated the Bulldogs 78-58 on Nov. 22. The War Eagles played a full 32-minute game.
Marshall wants his players to be more consistent, though. He wants to avoid a repeat of what happened in the second half against Morgan County, hoping his players understand that it could cost them down the road.
“We’ve got to understand that coming in ranked No. 1, it’s a different year,” Marshall said. “We’ve got to stay focused on finishing the job, finishing the game, you know what I’m saying? Like, even running our offense all the way down to make teams play defense and get an easy shot instead of taking an early shot. It’s just about refocusing on what we need to do and knowing how we need to do it. We have to understand that we need to play the right way, and we didn’t in the second half (against Morgan County) last week.”
The War Eagles will host rival Baldwin on Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Houston County on Saturday at 6:30 p.m.