Most basketball coaches would be happy to see their team leading by 11 points at halftime.
West Prairie boys coach Ian Conkling was disappointed.
The Cyclones upped their game in the second half on the way to a 61-36 win over rival Bushnell-Prairie City.
But the first half stuck with Conkling, whose team posted its 13th straight victory, improving to 18-4 on the season.
West Prairie led 12-6 after the initial eight minutes as Holden Coplan scored six points for the Cyclones.
Older brother Braden Coplan scored seven of West Prairie’s 16 points in the second period in helping the visitors build a 28-17 halftime advantage.
“Our first half shots didn’t fall,” said Conkling. “I wasn’t concerned about that. I was more concerned with the second and third chance opportunities, the jogging back on defense. The bad habits.”
“That’s not how we need to play against some quality teams coming up,” he added. “We need to play a lot better.”
B-PC attempted to remain in contention as Connor Palm and Braylon Griffitts combined for 13 of B-PC’s points.
“I thought we drove the ball very well in the first half that kept us in the game,” said B-PC coach Shane Curry. “But we didn’t finish and that’s the name of the game. They finished contested shots and we did not.”
“Little things are killing us.” West Prairie started to assert itself late in the third quarter as Braden Coplan scored 11 of his team’s 13 points. The Cyclones increased their lead to 41-27 entering the last eight minutes.
“You could see the drive was still there,” Curry said about his team as it entered the fourth quarter. “But we have to be more competitive in our shooting. We’re going to look at our offense to get more things involved.”
The visitors pulled away as the Coplans combined for 15 of the Cyclones 20 points.
“They found their lanes and they are very good at finishing on an angle,” said Curry of the Coplan brothers. “If you are not shooting very well and they go on a little run, it’s hard to stop that bleeding.”
“Obviously, we needed to challenge that group in the second half,” Conkling said of his team. “I posed a lot of questions to them. Obviously, we have to start playing up to our ability that’s on both sides of the floor, preaching consistency.”
“We didn’t have that in the first half,” he added. “That first half, we did not play up to our capabilities, nor had the effort required to be a 17-4 team.”
Braden Coplan, who passed the 1,500 point mark for his career at WPHS, topped the Cyclones with 29 points.
Holden Coplan added 14 points, followed by Matt Whitman with seven points, Ryan Clark with six, Hunter Jackson with two, Eli DeCounter with two and Max French with one.
DeCounter recorded a team-leading 10 rebounds and two assists, while Holden Coplan handed out a team-leading six assists, adding four rebounds.
Clark had five rebounds, while Whitman and Braden Coplan added four each.
“We have to keep finding a way to play hard and find a different gear if we want to continue to go where we want to go,” said Conkling.
Griffitts and Palm topped B-PC (2-14, 0-3 Prairieland South) with 14 and 12 points respectively.
Christian Graybill added three points, while De’Arion Ruffin-Thomas and Dylan King each scored two points for the Spartans.
“We’ve got to work on our form,” said Curry. “We’re giving ourselves opportunities, but we’re not converting.”
For West Prairie, Friday’s scheduled game against Hartsburg-Emden was canceled, due to Hart-Em not having enough healthy players to compete.
The Cyclones are slated to play at Payson-Seymour Saturday and at Southeastern on Monday.
Meanwhile, the Spartans are slated to play at Havana on Friday and at Knoxville on Monday.
“Things are not falling the way we want them to,” said Curry. “It’s back to work tomorrow. The only thing we can do is get better.”
“I’ve got their backs and they have mine.”
Bushnell-Prairie City’s Braylon Grifftts (with ball) works his way to the basket as a pair of West Prairie defenders including Ryan Clark (right) defend during the second half of Tuesday’s high school boys basketball contest played at Bushnell. Griffitts scored a game-high 14 points for the Spartans, but West Prairie walked away with a 61-36 victory.
