Scott Townsend borrows Dean Smith's delay game to salt away Bradenton Christian win
By ALAN DELL
adell@bradenton.com
LAKELAND -- Things were slipping away for Bradenton Christian.
A 20-point halftime lead was 48-41 less than a minute into the fourth quarter and what once was a sure victory started to look like an embar
rassing defeat.
BCS head coach Scott Townsend then reached into his ghosts of seasons past bag and plugged the leak.
He called "Carolina" and his players executed the delay-game offense made famous by the legendary Dean Smith.
Slowing down their breakneck offense was not easy. Put a basketball in their hands and the Panthers will run all night. For BCS, it was like telling your son he can take the Corvette out of for a spin, but he can't go more than 20 mph.
To make it worse, not everyone on the BCS roster knows of the late Dean Smith, and nobody, in a postgame poll as unscientific as you can get, had heard of Phil Ford.
Few knew Hall of Fame coach Dean Smith created the four corners for North Carolina. They probably figured Phil Ford was known for inventing Model T Fords instead of being the guy who ran that delay game to perfection with his ball handling. Ford and the Tar Heels were so good at this delay tactic it eventually led to college basketball instituting a shot clock in 1985.
Who knows? Maybe someday Townsend and BCS might be the reason high school basketball institutes a shock clock despite the Panthers' penchant for running and gunning.
BCS was averaging 80.1 points per game entering Tuesday's Class 2A state semifinal against Florida A&M University Developmental Research School. Equate that to a 40-minute college game and they are averaging 100 points a game. Compare it to a 48-minute NBA game, and they are averaging a Golden State-like 120 points per game.
The Panthers scored 35 points in the first half and felt their offense had bogged down. They still earned a 61-44 win that put themselves in Wednesday's Class 2A state title game.
Townsend said he knew something about his team most of the world probably didn't: His players could and would adapt to anything if he asked,
"They didn't know anything about it when I introduced it to them in practice. I just told them it was an old-school thing known as the four corners, and we were going to call it 'Carolina.'" Townsend said. "We had been practicing it for moments like today. I just wanted to make sure we were prepared for whatever came our way.'"
Townsend's message was spread it out, run four corners and let's end the game.
"As soon as he called Carolina, it got kind of weird because normally we are scoring 80 points game. But we did it and it helped," senior guard Jake Lister said.
Adaptability is the mark of any good team and BCS showed it can adjust to any situation to secure a victory. In the final four, you get the best from every team and need to be prepared for anything.
"We were up 20 at halftime, but I knew they would come back. It's the final four," Townsend said. "I knew they were going to come out and fight and we just had to weather the storm. We got a little tense in that third quarter."
The Panthers key guys on the boards, 6-foot-8 J.T. Noellert and 6-3 Justin Aracena, spent most of third quarter on the bench because of foul trouble, which was another reason they needed to slow down.
This team is turning into the now-you-see-me-now-you-don't squad. The last two coaches BCS beat said they didn't believe the Panthers were so athletic and so quick.
"Their length on the baseline was surprising. We thought we could attack their 1-3-1 on the baseline and they trapped us," FAMU head coach Sean Crow said. "We could not outrebound them on our offensive boards, and that surprised us. Then they starting leaking guys out, first one and then two."
Alan Dell, Herald sports columnist/writer, can be reached at 941-745-7056. Follow him on Twitter @ADellSports
This story was originally published February 23, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Scott Townsend borrows Dean Smith's delay game to salt away Bradenton Christian win ."