The Long Beach Poly boys’ basketball team wrapped the Bosco Winter Classic with a loss to Loyola, putting their record in the tournament at 2-2 and 4-4 on the season. Poly took fourth-place with the win, and got a good look at what the Jackrabbits need to improve on in a 73-54 defeat.
“We’re not very good yet,” said Poly coach Shelton Diggs, who specifically said the week was a wakeup for his squad about how much it needs to improve defensively. “Every team we’ve played, their best player has gone off against us.”
The Jackrabbits opened with a pair of wins over Warren and Crespi before falling to St. Anthony and Loyola.
“It’s just quality of opponents for us,” said Diggs. “We look good against teams we should beat and we look bad against good teams.”
The Jackrabbits were battling with the Cubs for the first half, but an injury to Solomon Jones took the wind out of their sails. Jones had been having perhaps his best game of the season with 11 points including a pair of energizing dunks, when he was hit at the rim while dunking, and fell directly on his hip.
“That hurt us, they’re a bigger team and we needed some more strength in there,” said Diggs.
Peyton Watson led the way scoring with 22 points, and earned All-Tournament honors in the process. Poly led 18-17 after the first quarter but trailed 37-33 at halftime. After Poly fell behind in the third quarter and then gave up a 9-0 run to start the fourth, Diggs pulled his starters and put backups in.
“The starters weren’t doing anything, thought it was time to give some other guys a chance to get on the court,” said Diggs.
Poly will visit Jordan on Wednesday to open Moore League play then compete in the Damien Classic after Christmas.
