By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
With a share of the NCAA title already in hand, the Southeast of Saline boy’s basketball team will look to finish the job on Tuesday, when they head to Ellsworth for a rematch with the Bearcats.
The Trojans enter this contest at 17-1 overall and a perfect 8-0 in league while the Bearcats come in at 11-6 and 5-3.
With two losses to Southeast, Beloit (6-2) is the only other team holding on to the hope of spoiling a purple Trojan parade, but an SES win or a Beloit loss in either of the next two games will deliver Southeast a second-straight NCAA title.
Despite these accomplishments looming just over the horizon, the Trojan locker room has been devoid of any talk about league over the last two months, and Southeast continues to keep their focus on bigger aspirations ahead.
“We haven’t actually talked about league all year,” SES head coach Bryson Flax said. “We have a mature group that understands the situation and we don’t feel the need to discuss it. We just take things game by game and let things take care of themselves.”
After defeating #3 Ellinwood in a convincing 74-48 victory, the Trojans will have to turn around and travel to Ellsworth less than 24 hours later, and will likely not be at 100% come tip-off.
While other teams would view this as a potential excuse, SES sees it as an opportunity to hone their skills with tired legs ahead of the postseason grind.
“I think the biggest challenge of a back-to-back is not having time to get the guys on the floor and show them what the opponent is going to do,” Flax said. “The positive is that this is a league game, we know Ellsworth well and this will help prepare us physically for sub-state.”
In their first matchup with the Bearcats a few weeks back, Southeast took home a convincing 20-point win but will look to get off to an even better start in this one.
“We were a little sluggish against their zone early but once we settled in we did some good things,” he said. “We also gave up too many offensive rebounds and we didn’t do a good enough job of keeping Cravens out of the paint and he made some plays.”
The key against Ellsworth remains, as it has been for quite some time, finding ways to make Will Cravens' life difficult, something that has been easier said than done, but that the Trojans have consistently found ways to do over the course of his career.
“They’re still the same team,” Flax said. “They run the same stuff and they still want to run their stuff through Cravens. If you can make him work hard for everything and not let the next options take easy looks you like your chances but we have to be good defensively at five spots.”
Tip-off between the Trojans and Bearcats is set for 7:30 at Ellsworth High School following the girls’ game at 6:00.
Both games can be heard on KINA (910 AM or 107.5 FM) or streamed with live audio and video on the Salina Post.