Basketball Game Preview: PURE Academy Athletes vs. Hillcrest Vikings

The PURE Academy Athletes will square off against the Hillcrest Vikings at 6:00 p.m. on Monday. The squads are rolling into the game with opposing streaks: PURE Academy has struggled recently with nine defeats in a row, while Hillcrest will arrive with four straight wins.

It's never fun to lose, and it's even less fun to lose 69-31, which was the final score in PURE Academy's tilt against Christian Brothers two weeks ago. While losing is never fun, the Athletes can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' Tennessee basketball rankings (they are ranked 295th, while the Purple Wave are ranked 40th).

Meanwhile, Hillcrest took their match on Saturday with ease, bagging a 67-28 victory over Tunica Academy.

PURE Academy better keep an eye on Jerrell Miller. He was instrumental in Hillcrest's win, dropping a double-double on 19 points and ten boards. Miller has become a key player for Hillcrest: the team is undefeated when he posts at least ten boards, but 3-5 otherwise. Another player making a difference was Alex Morgan, who posted 12 points.

Hillcrest has been performing well recently as they've won six of their last eight games, which provided a massive bump to their 6-5 record this season. The wins came thanks to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 64.5 points per game. As for PURE Academy, their loss dropped their record down to 0-9.