Broken Arrow girls basketball is this week's winner of the Oklahoma Team of the Week, presented by the Oklahoma National Guard.
Courtesy photo
Starting the season with 10 straight victories is impressive enough. But for the
Broken Arrow girls basketball team, this is landmark.
There’s little-to-no history of success for the Tigers, who went 16-12 last season. Before that it was 7-16, 7-14 and 9-12.
In 2008-09, Broken Arrow had a breakout 20-7 season, but the two years before that, it was a combined 11-31.
For their fast start, the Wildcats are the MaxPreps Oklahoma Team of the Week, presented by the Oklahoma National Guard.
"We have made a concerted effort to get better at the little things that don’t show up on stat sheets such as blocking out, help defense and making the extra pass," said head coach Mike Hughes. "There has also been a high emphasis put on individual player development with concern to shooting, dribbling and defensive positioning. Furthermore, we're creating more team chemistry through team outings and understanding roles of the team and the importance of each."
The Wildcats have won by less than double-digits only four times, including a 42-35 triumph over Edmond Santa Fe on Saturday. Broken Arrow got 13 points apiece from seniors
Jordan Doyle and
Toree Thompson.
Edmond came into the game undefeated as well.
Broken Arrow also opened with a tough 58-50 win over Bartlesville and two games later, pulled out a 67-65 win over Muskogee as Thompson went for 21 points,
Ashlyn McBride added 14 and
Amari Dennis 11.
That was Muskogee’s only defeat of the season as well.
Thompson, the team’s leading scorer at 21.3 per game, exploded for 31 in a 60-54 win over Midwest City, in the Wildcats’ only other real tight game. A 5-foot-9 point guard, she has signed a letter of intent to the University of Mississippi.
"Toree is a 'freak,' as the coaches like to say. She can flat out score from everywhere on the floor," said Hughes. "Her ability to do that makes everyone on the floor better as she makes defenses play us differently as opposed to her not being there.
"The reason that she does what she does is she is a 'gym rat.' When we finish practice with the team she is just starting, as she will get out the cones and start working on her game for at least an hour. She definitely has earned everything that she is getting through hours of hard work."
With six seniors and six juniors on their 15-person roster, the experience for the Wildcats has really shown through in close games.
Behind Thompson, Doyle is the team’s second leading scorer at 9.1, followed by Dennis (8.0), McBride (8.5) and
Alexis Gaulden.
Doyle is the team’s leading rebounder (6.0 per game), followed by Thompson (5.3) and Dennis (4.2). The Wildcats shoot 43 percent from the field and 64 percent at the foul line and average just 13 turnovers a game.
All of it has led to a perfect start for coach Hughes, whose team is ranked No. 1 in the state
according to the MaxPreps computer rankings.
The Wildcats' next game is Saturday against
Union (Tulsa).
"As we told the team in the beginning of the season, we do not want to set expectations that we can see, touch, smell," said Hughes. "Our ultimate goal for this team is to play the best that we can play as hard as we can play and all of the rest of things that they want to happen will."
MaxPreps editorial assistant Kirstin Beal contributed to this report.Do you know a team that deserves
consideration for Oklahoma Team of the Week? Email us with your
nominations at OKteamoftheweek@maxpreps.com.
