Newport, without injured star sophomore Taylen Kinney, made 50% of its shots and 18 of 20 free throws to defeat the Middies 55-42.
“They shot well and we didn’t,” Edwards Jr. said. “Basketball is a miss or make game, and you’ve got to make shots. We tell our guys you got to get into gym – you got to put more shots up.”
The transition baskets the Middies (9-4) allowed came in bunches in the first and third quarters. Newport (16-3) blocked shots and took advantage of turnovers to build a 16-11 lead.
“We had opportunities early where we didn’t make the right play, guys are open for kick outs and we tried to challenge 6-9, 6-8 where we should have a dump off or we should get a kick out,” Edwards Jr. said.
The transition buckets the Middies allowed in the third sparked a 12-5 Newport run and put the Middies in a 40-25 hole.
“It was just miscues, mental mistakes, that we need to fix and go back to the drawing board,” Edwards Jr. said.
Jeremiah Landers led the Middies with 17 points and Isaac Stamper scored 11. Stamper was honored at halftime with the annual Flyin’ To The Hoop $1,000 scholarship.
Newport put four scorers in double figures in the absence of Kinney. James Turner had 14, DeShaun Jackson, a Taft transfer, had 12 and Jabari Covington and Amontae Lowe scored 10 apiece.
In the end, Edwards Jr. didn’t see his team take advantage of its scrappy and aggressive nature by not making shots.
“We like to play fast, but we also can play inside out with Stamper,” he said. “But our identity has to be to speed people up and be sound. We want to be disciplined within what we do. For the most part this year, we’ve done that well. There’s a couple of times we got away from our identity in the few losses that we’ve had.”
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