During the first half of Tuesday’s game against West Potomac, a member of the T.C. Williams cheerleading team periodically implored the Titans to crash the boards, shouting “rebound!” from her position near the baseline.
At halftime, T.C. Williams head coach Bryan Hill talked to his team about “effort and doing the right things,” including the Titans’ need to hit the glass.
Whether members of the T.C. Williams boys’ basketball team listened to their coach or a fellow student on the cheer squad, the Titans played the second half as if they heard the message loud and clear.
The Titans out-rebounded the Wolverines in the second half and turned a three-point halftime lead into a 64-52 victory at T.C. Williams High School. The Titans held a 20-17 second-half rebounding advantage, including nine offensive boards.
“In the first half, [Coach Hill] told our guards we have to help the bigs rebound more,” T.C. Williams senior guard Andrew Hill said. “Once that happened, once we started to rebound, that’s when we started getting more breaks and more opportunities at the basket.”
The victory improved T.C. Williams’ record to 8-4, including 5-1 in Conference 7. The Titans have won seven in a row after starting the season 1-4.
West Potomac didn’t make things easy, however. The Wolverines out-rebounded the Titans 17-12 in the first half and limited Andrew Hill, one of T.C. Williams’ top scoring threats, to four points during the first 21 minutes of the contest. Sophomore guard Khalil Williams Diggins’ transition bucket gave the Wolverines a 17-16 lead with 6:20 left in the second quarter and West Potomac entered halftime trailing 30-27.
The second half was a different story as T.C. Williams led by as many as 15 points, aided by a nine-point outburst by Hill near the end of the third quarter.
“It was just a matter of us playing with a bit more energy and intelligence,” Coach Hill said of the Titans’ second-half performance. “We have a stretch ahead of us, with this being the initial game, that is very important to us. We’re trying to win as efficiently as possible, with the least amount of effort, and that takes basketball IQ and intelligence to do it. We’re a work in progress and we’re attempting to improve in every game and myself and my coaching staff are trying to make every aspect of the game a teaching moment to raise their basketball IQs in order to play basketball efficiently.”
The Titans led 39-33 late in the third quarter when Andrew Hill started to take over.
After being held to just four points through 21 minutes, No. 1 knocked down a 3-pointer with 2:42 left in the period, and then converted a pair of three-point plays to extend the Titans’ lead to 48-33.
Hill, who sat out of the Titans’ Jan. 16 win over Lee for a violation of team rules, finished with a game-high 19 points, including a floater that gave T.C. Williams a 56-44 advantage with five minutes left.
“It was my teammates driving and kicking,” Hill said, “and getting me an open shot.”
After the game, Coach Hill recognized his guard’s offensive outburst late in the third quarter, but also offered the senior a reminder to be humble.
“Last week, Mr. Hill didn’t play because he committed an infraction against a team rule and we were able to be successful without him, which is the sign of a good team,” Coach Hill said. “We were able to gain a certain level of confidence without [Hill]. He knows our success doesn’t hinge on his effectiveness, but obviously he was able to turn it up in that stretch ... and it enabled us to extend the lead and we were able to ice the game away.”
Tavaris James and Jordan Jones also reached double figures for T.C. Williams, each finishing with 11 points.
James, Jones, Hill and Tyrese Randall each grabbed six rebounds for the Titans.
West Potomac junior forward Jamie Sara finished with 16 points and 13 rebounds.
Senior guard Chris Cheng knocked down four 3-pointers, scored 15 points and grabbed six boards.
“I thought the looks [Cheng] got in the first half weren’t open, I thought he just made them,” West Potomac head coach David Houston III said. “They did a good job playing him. Most teams are sticking on him.”
Sara knocked down a pair of free throws to cut the T.C. Williams lead to 56-50 with 2:43 left in the fourth quarter, and scored inside to cut the Wolverines’ deficit to 58-52 with a little more than a minute remaining, but the Titans closed the game on a 6-0 run.
Houston said the Wolverines played a role in their own demise by shooting 13-for-25 at the free-throw line.
“Our stuff works when we run it. I saw that,” Houston said. “Our stuff works, our defense, we forced them to take bad shots, we cleaned up the glass in the first half. ... We saw some good things. Some of our guys didn’t play as well as we expected them to play — didn’t reach their average. Sara, he shot a low percentage tonight. Williams shot a pretty low percentage tonight. They didn’t reach their season averages. I think when we see [the Titans] again, it will be much different.”
T.C. Williams will travel to face Woodson on Friday, Jan. 23. The Cavaliers are the two-time defending “big school” region champion and each team is 5-1 in the Conference 7 standings. The Titans won the first meeting, 63-53, on Jan. 9 in Alexandria. The following night, the Titans will travel to face Hayfield at 6:30 p.m. On Jan. 27, T.C. Williams will host West Springfield, which on Dec. 12 handed the Titans their only conference loss of the season.
West Potomac (6-9, 2-4) will travel to face South County at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 27.