Cliff Joseph of Nottingham High School sets up to drop a 3 pointer against Hamilton High West. Photo by Michael A. Sabo
By Rich Fisher
Fish4scores.com
Feb. 3: Nottingham is playing as well as it ever has during Chris “The Baron” Raba’s five years as head coach.
But it’s not well enough. When you’re a coach, it never is.
“I mean, we can always get better,” said Raba, after the Stars took a 68-51 victory at Hamilton for their eighth straight win Friday night. “As a coach, if I’m happy with how we are, then we’re not gonna get any better. So there’s still some things we can improve on. We’re 14-3, we’ll take them one game at a time.”
The 14 wins are two shy of Nottingham’s highest total under Raba, when they went 16-10 in 2014-15. The Stars will most likely be seeded second in the Central Jersey Group III tournament behind Ewing unless there are some residual power points floating around that they can pick up.
“We have been clicking together,” said Cliff Joseph, who exploded for 32 points and nine rebounds. “We want to come to our full potential before the state tournament and we’ve been doing that.”
Meanwhile, Hamilton is trying to work two new players in the lineup, as Javon Porter and Nadir Johnson became eligible on Friday. Porter scored five points and Johnson had seven as coach Jay “D-2” Malloy tries to develop some new team chemistry before the Mercer County Tournament arrives in a few weeks.
“With these two guys, things may be a different story,” said Malloy, whose team fell to 5-13. “But physically and mentally, we’re just not there yet.”
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Much like two Tuesdays ago, Hamilton hung with the Northstars for the first 20 minutes before Nottingham pulled away in the final 12. The Stars led 30-27 at halftime and 38-33 with 2:50 left in the third quarter before Nottingham began pulling away.
The Stars shifted from man to a trapping zone after intermission, which helped ignite a stagnant first half.
“We weren’t fluid on offense and that was probably due to a lot of stuff they were doing to us,” Raba said. “We tried to speed them up a little bit and get them more in our tempo, get them in some traps all over the floor.”
The strategy worked for Nottingham, which shot poorly from the perimeter (as did Hamilton).
“We’re not a real halfcourt team,” Joseph said. “We want to get out on the break. So, that’s what we did more of in the second half and we got a lot more points. We just kept trapping and it led to fast break points.”
Malloy felt not converting some baskets also led to some easy Northstar buckets.
“We’ve just gotta finish,” he said. “We had a couple possessions where we need to score. If we don’t, we give up a fast break layup. We don’t get down on D and they got four quick ones that hurt us.
“I think we got down mentally too soon. I called a timeout at a seven or eight point deficit and they looked like they were done. It’s a growing process but at this point of the season we should know we can still fight back.”
Darell Johnson added 15 points for Nottingham while Christian Ford had nine. Mark Bethea had 11 for the Hornets, who did not make a 3-pointer all night.
Girls hoops: Stars top Hornets, Steinert defeats Lawrence
The Nottingham girls won for the eighth time in nine games with a 52-28 victory over Hamilton.
Tyasia Stephenson had 18 points, Giuliana Pocino added 15 and Haylee Kieffer chipped in with 11 as the Northstars improved to 11-7. Marissa Cooper led Hamilton with 14.
Steinert defeated Lawrence, 70-31, giving the Spartans their fourth win in the last five games and raising their record to 11-6.
Natalie Mehl led the way with 14 points and Cassidy Wood added 10, while Morgan “The Menace” Comfort had eight points and six rebounds. All 13 players scored for the Spartans who played.
