The Red Devil men could have easily won Tuesday nights game with Ottawas junior varsity squad by 40 or more points. Easily.
Ottawa brought only eight players to Iola and the Allen starters dwarfed them in both size and ability.
However after nearly a half of domination head coach Andy Shaw had different plans which eventually led to the Red Devils scraping to an 81-72 win, keeping Allen perfect this season.
I wanted to give the guys who didnt really get to play in our first two games an opportunity to show me what they had while playing in a real college game, Shaw said. Obviously, the second half wasnt great and we still need to get better but several guys stepped up and showed me that theyre ready to play.
The Red Devils were outscored 51-33 in the second half without the starters on the court but it was an effort like the one shown from freshman forward Devonire Glass that made the roster experiment successful. Glass had 17 points throughout the game and nine rebounds making him just one shy of his first collegiate double-double.
He showed some flashes of what he can do, Shaw said. Hopefully that will give him some confidence and momentum heading forward because I think he is a guy who can really help us.
For the 10 to 15 minutes that the Red Devil starters did play, they were indomitable. After a bit of a slow first several minutes defensively, the Allen men picked it up and allowed the Braves to score just six points in the final 15 minutes of the first half.
After halftime though, things started to fall apart. The Red Devils couldnt score and the small but mighty Ottawa bunch couldnt miss including going an amazing 8-11 from three-point land in the final 20 minutes alone.
They fought like crazy, Shaw said. They had to make some wild shots but that happens in basketball. But they played hard. One of the things we talked about was not giving them confidence and in the first half I thought we took it away but in the second half they got some back.
Add in the 23 second-half fouls and one can start to see how this one started to slip away for the Red Devils.
I was a little bit worried that Id have to put our starters back in, Shaw said. But our guys pulled it out. If anything, tonight showed that we still have plenty to work on.
Wesley Anderson Jr. had 12 points and Trez Hankins had 10. Brandon Gray had eight points and eight rebounds, the majority of which came in the second half.
The Red Devils will now embark on a week-and-a-half-long road stand where theyll travel around Oklahoma, Missouri and even fit in a conference game versus Kansas City Kansas CC.
That all starts with a rematch versus Northern Oklahoma College-Tonkawa team that the Red Devils beat 77-68 last Friday to start off the season.
You can bet theyll be ready for us, Shaw said of Tonkawa. Over the next couple of days, well need to teach our guys who have never been here before how tough it is to play on the road because its very hard to do.
