Franklin’s boys basketball team did what it set out to do in terms of keeping the ball away from Greenwood forward Rasheed Elemikan on Friday night.
Unfortunately for the Grizzly Cubs, their efforts on that front opened up a few too many opportunities for the Woodmen elsewhere on the floor.
Junior guard Brock Kincaid scored 21 points and sophomore Carter Campbell added 14, including a pair back-breaking 3-pointers in the third quarter, as Greenwood negated a torrid shooting night from Franklin’s Carson Hunter and earned a 57-45 victory.
"From an offensive standpoint, Brock controls 95, 98 percent of the game," Greenwood coach Joe Bradburn said. "It’s just kind of what he’s learned to do. He’s been a starter since his freshman year, and he has a great handle on everything we want to do."
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryFranklin (0-3, 0-1 Mid-State) was determined to deny entry passes to Elemikan, and Kincaid and the rest of the Woodmen perimeter players took advantage of the openings that created.
Kincaid owned the first quarter, scoring three times on drives to the basket and then knocking down a top-of-the-key 3 as time expired to give the Woodmen a 15-5 advantage.
"We had to take what the defense was giving us, and they definitely were keying on Rasheed," Kincaid said. "Everyone else stepped up. We were getting a lot of draw-and-kicks and we were getting a lot of bunnies in the first half, which kind of moved them out of that zone."
A three-point play by Elemikan stretched the Greenwood lead to 26-13 before a pair of baskets from Hunter cut the margin to nine by the break. Hunter scored nine of his game-high 26 points in the second quarter to keep the Grizzly Cubs within range, but Greenwood (3-0, 2-0) kept the visitors at arm’s length thanks in part to a pair of 3s off the bench from Campbell.
Campbell then connected on consecutive 3-pointers midway through the third to extend the Greenwood cushion to 39-23, an almost insurmountable edge given the Woodmen’s deliberate style and tenacious defense.
Bradburn credited David Young and Ty Moore with providing a spark at the defensive end.
"They set everything for us, because defensively they were just being scrappy and getting after it, and we needed to set that tone," the coach said.
Hunter tried his best to prevent the game from getting away, converting an and-one with 6:21 left in the fourth to get Franklin back to within single digits at 43-35. But buckets by Kincaid and Young put Greenwood up by a dozen, and the Grizzly Cubs never got closer than 10 after that.
Damon Dickey finished with 11 points in a losing effort for the Grizzly Cubs, who struggled to find another consistent source of effort outside of Hunter.
"We need to convert whenever we get something positive going our way, and we’re not good at it yet," Franklin coach Brad Dickey said. "But we’re a really enthusiastic group, we’re energetic, we competed hard. We just have to improve our conversions."
Greenwood, meanwhile, is still looking to form its identity with several new players in the rotation this year, but Kincaid is confident that the team will get it figured out in due time.
"It’s going to come," he said. "Even last year, it kind of took us a while to get a rhythm in the first half of the season, but just like last year, everyone’s buying into what coach, and if everyone does their job it’ll work out the same as last year, I think."
