Time is growing short for the Commerce Lady Tigers, with the opening game of their 2010-11 season less than a week away.
The Lady Tigers will travel to Oglethorpe County on Tuesday, Nov. 30, where they’ll face the Lady Patriots.
Commerce came away the winner in the most recent meeting of the two teams, besting Oglethorpe 44-28 last December.
Tip-off is scheduled for 6 p.m.
The Lady Tigers have been practicing and scrimmaging in preparation for the new season, including a scrimmage last week with Johnson, which bested Commerce 45-36.
“The scrimmage … was much of what I expected,” said coach Eddie McCurley. “(Johnson) had a little more depth than we did. After just two weeks of practice, I anticipated some missed assignments and mistakes caused by them being a little anxious and trying to prove themselves on the court.”
McCurley said the team’s ball handling was not very good, citing poor passing, not catching the ball well and too many loose balls.
“We will improve on that with game experience, but it has to start in practice,” he said. “We depended on Jaz Grier too much to get the ball up the court. Our guards are going to have to take some of that burden off her.”
Despite the problems, McCurley said his team did some good things and he believes it took a step forward.
“Our rebounding was better and we ran the floor well on transition,” he said. “We have to work on finishing in transition. Jaz had a good night with 22 points and a dozen or so rebounds, but she got fatigued late because we are asking her to do so much.”
McCurley said that Grier is going to be the main focus for every team the Lady Tigers face.
“She handled it well against Johnson as she got double and triple-teamed a lot of the night,” he said. “She got the ball to other players when she needed to.”
McCurley also pointed to the performance of Madison Maddox, who stepped up at point guard after a rough first couple of minutes.
“Freshmen Lily Mather and Hannah Davis will provide some size inside,” he added. “We need to get some offensive production from them. They rebound well, but they scored just three and two points respectively.”
McCurley said he was also impressed with the minutes he got from freshman Savanna Romans.
“She plays hard and is easy to coach,” he added.
For more on this story, see Wednesday's edition of The Commerce News.
