Basketball Game Preview: Hickory Ridge Ragin' Bulls vs. Mooresville Blue Devils

Hickory Ridge and Mooresville are an even 4-4 against one another since January of 2022, but not for long. The Hickory Ridge Ragin' Bulls will take on the Mooresville Blue Devils at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Both are sauntering into the matchup backed by comfortable wins in their prior games.

Hickory Ridge is headed in fresh off scoring the most points they have all season. They breezed by A.L. Brown to the tune of 99-72 on Friday. Given the Ragin' Bulls' advantage in MaxPreps' North Carolina basketball rankings (they are ranked 113th, while the Wonders are ranked 493rd), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.

Meanwhile, you can't lose the game if you win every quarter, and that was precisely Mooresville's strategy against Cox Mill on Friday. Given that consistent dominance, it should come as no surprise that Mooresville blew Cox Mill out of the water with a 78-49 final score. The contest was pretty much decided by the half, when the score had already reached 37-15.

Hickory Ridge better keep an eye on Dylan Clark. He was instrumental in Mooresville's win, dropping a double-double on 24 points and 11 rebounds. Those 24 points gave Clark a new career-high. Christian Wilson was another key player, putting up 11 points.

Mooresville was working as a unit and finished the game with 25 assists. That's the most assists they've managed all season.

Mooresville is on a roll lately: they've won 12 of their last 13 games, which provided a nice bump to their 16-3 record this season. The wins came thanks to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 74.8 points per game. As for Hickory Ridge, their victory ended a three-game drought on the road and puts them at 9-9.

Things could have been worse for Hickory Ridge, but things could have been a whole lot better as they took a 74-60 loss to Mooresville in their previous meeting back in December of 2024. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Clark, who made all 6 shots he took to post 18 points and seven boards. Now that Hickory Ridge knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? There's only one way to find out.