The Jordan Falcons will head out on the road to challenge the Riverside-Durham Pirates at 8:00 p.m. on Friday. Hopefully Jordan focused on turnovers this week since the team gave up ten on Tuesday.
Last Tuesday, Jordan came up short against East Chapel Hill and fell 53-43. The loss was a bit of a surprise, as Jordan came into the game with a sizable advantage in MaxPreps' North Carolina basketball rankings (they are ranked 104th, while East Chapel Hill is ranked 276th).
Despite their defeat, Jordan saw several players rise to the challenge and make noteworthy plays. Derek Ross jr, who scored 11 points, was perhaps the best of all. Another player making a difference was Drew Johnson, who scored 11 points.
Meanwhile, even if it wasn't a dominant performance, Riverside-Durham beat Chapel Hill 48-42 on Tuesday. The victory made it back-to-back wins for Riverside-Durham.
Corey Hairston Jr. was his usual excellent self, scoring 21 points. The team also got some help courtesy of Jamari Murphy, who scored nine points.
Jordan's defeat dropped their record down to 11-9. As for Riverside-Durham, they have been performing well recently as they've won three of their last four contests, which provided a nice bump to their 14-7 record this season.
Some high-performance offense is likely on the agenda as the two teams are some of the highest scoring teams in the league. Jordan hasn't had any problem running up the score this season, having averaged 60.7 points per game. However, it's not like Riverside-Durham struggles in that department as they've been averaging 56.3 points per game. With both teams so easily able to put up points, the only question left is who can run the score up higher.
Jordan didn't have too much breathing room in their contest against Riverside-Durham in their previous meeting back in January, but they still walked away with a 67-61 win. One of the biggest obstacles the team faced in that game was Hairston Jr., who scored 18 points along with eight rebounds and two steals. Now that he's got a second chance to win this matchup, will Jordan still be able to contain Hairston Jr.? There's only one way to find out.
