ATHENS – Cody Anderson’s first win as the Morgan County boys’ basketball coach was exciting. The Bulldogs pulled out a 64-52 double-overtime victory over Cedar Shoals on Saturday night in front of a packed gymnasium.
Anderson was proud of how his team fought against a tough Cedar Shoals squad.
“The thing that I respect about coach (L’Dreco) Thomas is that they play so hard,” Anderson said. “He’s got a young team this year and I told our team going into the game that they’re not going to look as physically imposing as in the past. But make no mistake, they’re better than they appear on film. They play super hard. It was a great test for us. I challenged our players to build our identity on effort, energy and execution.
Morgan and the Jaguars ended regulation tied at 40 after Reggie Ross hit a pair of free throws. Cedar Shoals then came out in the first extra period firing on all cylinders. The Jaguars went on a quick 6-0 run and led 46-40 with two minutes left in the fourth quarter.
The Bulldogs would cut the lead and trail by two points after a few baskets in transition. They also got possession of the ball with 6.7 seconds left. TJ Thompson drove inside the lane and missed a tough layup but the ball bounced off the backboard.
However, Quay Brown caught the rebound and dunked the ball as the clock hit zero. The senior guard’s effort tied the score up at 46-46 as the game headed into a second overtime. That’s when Morgan took control of the game and cruised to victory. The Bulldogs outscored Cedar Shoals 18-6 in the second final overtime.
>>> See the video of Brown's put-back dunk here
“It’s just the fun part about coaching really good players. Big-time players make big-time plays,” Anderson said. “I can’t speak enough about Quay. … He’s struggled with his efficiency thus far. So, he’s had a lot of plays that he’s used to making that he hasn’t been able to finish. Whether it could be a contested layup that gets blocked when he would slam it on somebody in the past or something else. Overcoming that is really difficult. He had some moments early in the game where he got frustrated because he wasn’t finishing the play. I looked at him during a timeout (early in the game). I told him he was going to make a big-time play at some point. Obviously, I didn’t foresee a put-back just quite like that, but his ability and belief in what we’re doing, he deserves it.”
Morgan County had two players with double-double performances against the Jaguars.
Thompson, who missed the season-opener against Lowndes on Nov. 12, scored a game-high 26 points, pulled down 12 rebounds and had three steals. Brown totaled 15 points, a game and team-high 17 rebounds. Plus, he had three assists and five steals.
“The greatest part of that entire play, the second (Quay) had that put-back dunk, he sprints right over and helps TJ up (off the floor),” Anderson said. “That was one of those moments where I got to see those guys coming together and connecting, especially because that’s what it is all about. That’s going to help us down the road.”
Neither team could buy a basket in the first few minutes, but Cedar Shoals led early. The Bulldogs then went on a 5-0 run to lead 8-6 with 2:37 remaining the in the first quarter. They then held a two-point advantage (14-12) at the end of the period.
The second quarter was more of the same as each team struggled to score points. but Brown’s dunk with 1:54 left pulled Morgan within one. The Jaguars would next hit a triple to extend their lead back to four points. Thompson then buried a 3-pointer from long-range with under 10 seconds left to tie the game 23-23 at the break.
Cedar Shoals tightened up its defense to start out the third quarter and switched to a tight 3-2 zone. The Jaguars took advantage of their defense and jumped out to a 32-23 lead as the Bulldogs didn’t score a basket in the first four minutes of the second half. Morgan, however, did go on a 7-3 run to end the third quarter and trailed by five (35-30) going into the fourth.
The Jaguars then led by nine points (39-30) with a little over three minutes to go, but Thompson took it upon himself and went on a 5-0 spurt of his own. The Bulldogs did pull to within one point as freshman Brandon Nelson nailed a 3-pointer.
“I didn’t think we started the game very well. I thought our guys responded after calling a timeout and that settled us down,” Anderson said. “Credit to coach Thomas. He threw a zone at us, and we haven’t spent much time on it. That’s 100 percent on me because we’re focused on doing other things. I think the zone really hurt us in terms of our offensive flow. When you don’t get an offensive flow going, it’s hard.”
Still, Morgan’s resilience throughout the rest of the contest led the Bulldogs to victory. They got clutch baskets from Thompson, Brown, Ross and Nelson in crunch time. However, freshen Zeki Locus and Jacoby Simmons played valuable minutes, too.
“Coming into the second half, we decided to go small and pick up our pressure (on defense) a little bit. Ultimately, it was the key to our success,” Anderson said. “To also fight through adversity is always good. To be able to ‘flex that muscle’ as (Georgia football head coach) Kirby (Smart) says. For us to have a chance to come together through adversity was awesome, man.”
Morgan returned to the court Monday in Athens but lost to Trinity Christian, 66-36. The Bulldogs’ next game will be at home on Dec. 2 to face Social Circle at 7:30 p.m.