Rebounding Woes Doom Mustangs in Loss

After losing 63-40 in its second game at the La Cañada Holiday, the Muir High School boys basketball team will look to rebound over the weekend.

Literally.

Mustangs coach Gamal Smalley pegged rebounding as the No. 1 thing his squad needed to work on following Wednesday's setback. And after the team postgame meeting, his players had gotten the message.

"We need to work on our help defense," said Taturs Mayberry. "And we need to work on getting boards a lot."

Problems with their help defense may have made the Mustangs vulnerable to the penetration of La Cañada's Michael McGlashan, who scored 16 of his 18 points in the third quarter, a period during which Muir was outscored 24-7.

Muir's Deshawn Hayes opened that third quarter with an emphatic dunk, but the Mustangs missed the opportunity to seize momentum after that play, and Hayes was held to 15 points and two rebounds on the evening.

"He was our leading scorer and rebounder last year," Smalley said, "And he hasn't rebounded this year at all. He's been standing on the perimeter watching, and he needs to be more active inside."

Hayes was by no means the only Mustang to get shut off the boards. In fact, the only Muir player to rebound well was Raymond Malone, who came off the bench to grab six boards in six minutes.

None of Malone's teammates had more than three rebounds.

"That's great for Raymond," Smalley said, "but that's terrible for (the rest of) our team. Where's our rebounding coming from?"

Though the answer to that question might not come immediately, Smalley could take comfort in knowing that his team's struggles were not surprising, given its youth.

Yes, Muir let La Cañada (6-0) take over Wednesday's game in the second half, but La Cañada coach Tom Hofman's team boasts a lineup of mostly returning seniors.

"More experienced teams like us should have that advantage earlier against younger teams like Muir," Hofman said. "We came out a little more polished, and that's what we should do."

Meanwhile, younger teams are more likely to be inconsistent.

"We're a young team and we're still growing," Smalley said. "Championships aren't won in December, and so if there's a time to get this kind of beating, this is the best time, and we're going to learn from it and grow from it."

Indeed, the Mustangs hope to bounce back to the level they played at on Tuesday, when they dominated Village Christian 66-37 in their Holiday Classic opener.

Muir plays Arcadia at 6 p.m. Friday, with the winner playing in Saturday's third-place game (5:30 p.m.), and the loser playing in the fifth-place game (3:30 p.m.). All games are at La Cañada High School.