Tuesday night’s first-round Bosco Winter Classic between Compton and Rancho Verde’s boys’ basketball teams was a clash of two styles, between a Compton team that wants to rebound and go and a Mustangs team that wants to grind and play deliberate defense. Compton got suckered into playing RV’s way and couldn’t ever speed the game up in a frustrating 44-38 victory.
“We’ve gotta be tougher than that,” said Compton coach Tony Thomas. “This is a big tournament and we came out a little nervous. Then we didn’t want to wake up and play. We want to get the ball and run and we had guys just standing around. It was a big moment and we didn’t play big. And it’s early, it wasn’t even that big of a moment.”
Compton led 10-9 after the first quarter and trailed just 22-21 at halftime, but the Mustang defense smothered Compton and allowed just two field goals in the third quarter, while scoring 15 points to take a seven-point lead headed into the fourth quarter.
Compton was able to hang in thanks to solid free throw shooting, and Jabari Steward got his mid-range game going to cut the lead to 38-36 with 4:33 left in the game. But Compton only scored one more basket after that, and had to waste a lot of time fouling to get into the bonus late in the contest while trying to send the Mustangs to the free throw line.
Compton was led by Jordan Harvey, who had 14 points, and Steward, who had 11 points. Khemanni Davis, a sophomore, led the Mustangs with 22 points.
