Greyhounds Get Back on Track at Home

By Chuck Livingston

The Evening Times Sports Editor

MSCC Sports Information

WEST MEMPHIS, Arkansas --- After two consecutive losses dropped the MSCC Greyhounds below the .500 mark, the Greyhounds were more than ready to return home. 

Waiting for them at The Dog House was Crowley's Ridge JV, and MSCC proved to be up to the challenge. 

The Greyhounds scored the first 20 points of the ballgame, while forcing eight turnovers in that frame to tackle a 124-62 decision against the Pioneers to even their record at 2-2 ahead of their participation in the Harrison Classic over the weekend. 

"I think it was very important for us to establish the tempo that we wanted to establish," MSCC head coach Chris Parker said after the game. "We worked on our defense this week, and I was very excited about the defensive effort that our starting five came into play with tonight. We were able to force that tempo early on and get some baskets off of our defense." 

The Greyhounds would force 17 turnovers in the first half in building a 56-17 halftime lead, and all 12 active MSCC players that dressed out scored at least two points in the game, and 11 of them scored in the first half. 

"We went into tonight and only suited up 12, had some guys banged up and wanted to get them rest, but we wanted to play all 12 and we felt like this would be a good game to get some guys some game experience. That's good because we still have some guys that are still getting used to playing college basketball and thankfully we were able to get them some good experience tonight," explained Parker of his expanded rotation against Crowley's Ridge.

MSCC was led in scoring by Jonesboro native Tony White's 15 points, but seven Greyhounds hit double figures, including Marquavious Smith (14), Emaje Young (13), Tasmania Jones (12) , Joe Dye (12), DeShawn McGowan (12) and Justin Harris (10). 

The home team was able to hit triple digits as a team while taking a  staggering 101-43 lead with 7:10 remaining after a White lay-up.

Despite his team's offensive effort, Parker wasn't ready to give his squad perfect marks, not yet anyway.

"We're still a work in progress," Parker stated, "We still missed a few rotations as well but we did come out strong and put them away quick," Parker added.

MSCC had a lot of success on the fast break, but slipped up in other areas, said the coach.

"We still need some work on our half-court offense. I thought the second half we executed a little bit better, but of course our defense was a little lax in that half as well. They were able to hit some three-pointers and that was disappointing because we talked about them being a three-point shooting team."

The Greyhounds enjoyed checking in at home last night, but Parker knows that they things will tighten up this weekend when they go play Central Methodist on Friday at 5:30 p.m. and Penn Valley CC on Saturday at 12 p.m.

"We are getting better game-after-game before our trip to Harrison this weekend. I hope we can continue to improve up there with a couple of tough games."

MSCC was 2-0 in last year's edition of the Pioneer Classic in Harrison, defeating Kansas City Community College 73-71 and Penn Valley 87-80.