Huron Basketball took its season ending loss Tuesday night in Detroit against Cass Tech. Falling 55-49 to the Technicians in what was only the third loss of the entire season.  This was a closely contested game throughout, and Huron should have no shame in losing to what most look at as a top three to five team in Michigan. Sophomore Macari Moore led Huron in scoring with 15 points, Junior Mohamed Doumbouya added a double double with 13 points and 10 rebounds, Seniors Braylon Dickerson and TJ Bell added nine and eight of their own respectively.

Huron starts out hot with early advantage

The Rats played maybe the best first quarter they’ve played all season in this game, starting out on a 10-2 run which included a corner three from Moore, two layups from Doumbouya and one from Bell. The Huron defense was giving Cass Tech fits early on, forcing multiple bad passes for turnovers and low percentage shots. The Technicians caught up in the latter half of the quarter, going on a 7-5 run to end the frame. Doumboyua was the MVP of the quarter, scoring nine of his 13 points in the opening period by relentlessly crashing the glass and contending every rebound available. Huron got a taste of the suffocating defense they’d get the rest of the night, but they handled it the best they did all night in the first quarter. It would only get more difficult from that point on.

Backbreaking Technicians defense

Cass Tech played a handsy, in-your-face defense all night long, which consisted of on and off full court pressing, constantly pressuring the ball for the length of the court if they weren’t pressing, and half court zone defense focused on forcing the ball to the off hand, trapping at the wings and heavily denying the ball to the free throw line in the middle of the zone. The Technicians were up in the face of the ball handler all game long, no matter who it may have been handling it. It often took more time to get the ball up the floor to run the half court offense, nearly getting a 10 second violation on multiple occasions. The Rats were clearly frustrated with this defense all night and it made scoring the ball much more tedious and getting out in transition almost impossible. Huron was able at times to break down the defense and get the ball to the middle and to the corners, and those possessions resulted in quality looks. But this didn’t happen often enough to break away and get a sizable lead. Cass Tech is the best defensive team that Huron played all season, and still being able to put up 49 points with success from outside the arc and at the free throw line is nothing to be ashamed of.

Mac leaves game in 4th, Huron has three chances to tie

The 4th quarter started with a 40-39 advantage for Huron, and after five minutes of trading buckets Cass Tech had the one point advantage, 50-49. After two Cass Tech free throws to put them ahead, Macari Moore went down to the floor, and after getting stretched out during a game Moore left the game with cramps for the final three minutes. As if it couldn’t get any worse, Dumboyua went out of the game for the same reason and also didn’t return. After Cass Tech made a baseline layup, had the ball down three, 52-49 with 20 seconds left. Huron proceeded to miss three straight potential game-tying three pointers in a row. Junior Jackson Keefer had the first attempt from the corner next to the Huron bench, and after missing Cass Tech corralled the rebound. TJ Bell came up from behind and knocked the ball loose. Bell grabbed the loose ball and launched a three from the wing, missing short. Cass Tech again grabbed the rebound and again failed to control it. This time it was Junior Christian Brown who forced the turnover. Brown gathered control, passed to Dickerson (who had made three three pointers, all in the third quarter) who shot the Rats third attempt at a tie and missed from the top of the key. Cass Tech didn’t give away that rebound and made their free throws to end the game.

After dominating the regular season and playoffs up till this game, Huron ran up against a better team. Cass Tech sophomore guard Darius Acuff had 30 points to lead the Technicians three point heavy offense. This was the only game this season where Huron didn’t control the pace of the game, and they still were in it till the very end, with multiple chances to tie and send it to overtime. Huron will be left wondering whether or not having Moore and Doumbouya in the last three minutes would’ve changed the outcome. Looking on the bright side, both of those guys will be back next season. The future still looks bright for Huron basketball, and a season including a SEC regular season title, District and Regional championships isn’t anything to look down upon.