Jonas Emilsson
www.KramMag.com

Coming into the season, the Notre Dame Pride’s coaching staff pegged their senior boys basketball to finish near the bottom of the pack in division one.

After Tuesday night’s 87-49 shellacking of the St. Francis Browns, it may be time to reconsider those expectations.

“Honestly, to start the year I thought we’d be in the bottom of the pack in Div I, but we’re competing well, we keep getting better and these kids buy into playing defense so we might be around there in the end,” said Pride’s head coach Mike McFarland.”

Pride’s David Lodovica lead all scorers with 18 points and Abe Aden chipped in 13 points.

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“They played hard, and what we were really happy with is that they played hard for 40 minutes,” said McFarland. There was no letting up, we ran kids in and out off the bench.

The Pride now owns an unblemished 3-0 record averaging a 38-point margin of victory.

Getting up for the Browns is easy considering the rivalry is a natural roll-over from the battles the two schools have had on the gridiron in recent years, which perhaps explains the blazing start the Pride go off to.

“I liked the pressure we put on St. Francis, we caused a lot of turnovers off that and we had a couple of kids that knocked down some threes and making some nice passes.”

By the time the first quarter came to an end the Pride held a commanding 23-10 lead, mainly due to their smothering full-court press that the Browns had no answer for.

“I think we engaged quite well during the press early in the game and that set the tempo of the game,” said Lodovica.

The Pride feasted on front-court turnovers which they converted to several easy buckets.

The fast pace the Pride deploy also results in a few extra turnovers on their part, but when the roster is jammed with that many athletic players, the in-you-face style of game is a no-brainer.

“We’re committing a lot of turnovers but the kids are working hard so we’ll cut down on those turnovers,” said McFarland.

Josh Jebose, the Pride’s agile big-man, scored all his 12 points in the first half.

By the time the teams headed to the locker room for the half-time break the Pride had extended their lead to 47-16 despite sitting their starters for a good majority of the second quarter.

Despite three run-away victories the McFarland still anguishes over a few aspects of his teams play, mainly the turnovers.

Another fact to acknowledge is that the Pride still haven’t gone up against any of the league’s true heavy weights in the regular season.

So far their victories have come against the John G. Diefenbaker Chiefs, the William Aberhart Trojans and the Browns.

During the Calgary Basketball Classic pre-season tournament they put together a solid effort against the highly ranked Bishop McNally Timberwolves in a 75-67 loss.

But if McFarland and the rest of the Pride’s coaching staff can find a way to maximize their squads highly athletic squad they may just find themselves battling for top spot with the rest of the big boys by the time the playoffs begin.

“We want to run with the ball, a lot of full-court pressure to utilize our athletes, that’s how we’re going to stay in a lot of games,” said McFarland.

Coming tomorrow…Last week’s Kram Player of the Week.

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