“I think we’re a different team now,” Short said. “We were still doing a lot of different things, and I think our guys have adjusted well and we’ve just gotten a lot better since the first time we played them.”
Junior guard Luke Rubin, the team’s leading scorer and Friday’s sparkplug on both ends of the floor, isn’t surprised Oakwood is 11-2, 7-1 in the SWBL Buckeye Division and currently holds the Dayton area’s No. 3 spot in the Division II RPI ratings that will determine tournament seedings.
“It’s a new coach and we were getting used to the system,” he said. “We believed in Coach Short, we’ve been able to believe in the system and it’s worked well. He’s a great coach.”
Carlisle (8-6, 5-3 Buckeye) went through a learning phase with head coach John Giles three years ago. In a different division than Oakwood, the Indians shared a division title in Giles’ first year and won it outright last year. This year the teams are in the same division and the Indians are in second place.
“They’ve just bought in to their style – shooting threes, playing a bunch of guys – they have good depth – and then pressuring the basketball,” Giles said. “Anytime a coach puts in a system the more time you have the more effective it’s going to be.”
Pressuring the basketball served Oakwood well Friday against a team that averages a league-high 15.8 turnovers a game. They key stretch came in the first few minutes of the third quarter when Oakwood turned several steals into points and extended a 28-20 halftime lead to 40-26.
“We try to take away reversals, make it tough on them, try to really shrink the floor, keep the ball on one side of the court,” Short said.
Giles and his team knew what was coming from Oakwood’s defense, but it didn’t matter.
“We were just careless with the ball on a lot of reverse passes that they jumped,” Giles said. “And not being strong with the ball, not going after passes with two hands – some of those small details that cost us,”
Rubin scored 18 points and Patrick Bremner added 12 to lead the Lumberjacks, but it was Carlisle junior guard Blake Lawson who almost stole the show. He scored 20 of his 25 points in the second half, including the Indians’ final 13 points.
“He’s a great player, really athletic and able to finish at the rim very well,” said Rubin, who was assigned to guard Lawson most of the game. “My plan was to take a bunch of charges on him, and I got one. Props to him. He almost got his team a W.”
After Oakwood took a 40-26 lead, Lawson scored seven points in under a minute to cut Carlisle’s deficit to seven. The teams traded points until Lawson drove for a layup to make the score 56-48 with 58 seconds left. Then he tied up an Oakwood player six seconds later and got the ball back. Lawson’s 3-pointer off the inbounds pass plus a free throw made the score 56-52. With 36 seconds left, another Lawson 3-pointer made the score 58-55.
Oakwood was called for over and back with 23 seconds left to give Carlisle a chance to tie. But an offensive foul on a moving screen designed to get Lawson free ended the Indians’ chances with 13 seconds left.
“He got us back in it with some of those shots he was making – tough, contested,” Giles said. “We were just trying to attack the rim to get to the free-throw line, stop the clock and he did a good job of that. We had a chance to tie it the end, but moving screen – another turnover.”
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