Barbour County finds room for improvement

Barbour County head coach Raymond White has some scary news for future opponents.

“I really don’t think we’ve played our best basketball yet,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve reached our potential.”

Despite the coach’s assessment, the Jaguars occupy the No. 1 spot in the Alabama Sports Writers Association Class 2A poll — two spots ahead of two-time defending state champion R.C. Hatch. Their wins include beating defending Class 4A state champion Bullock County and Class 6A schools Russell County, Northview and Enterprise.

“We’ve been winning, but I can’t say that we’ve played well,” White said. “I guess we’ve played just well enough to win.”

White knows that will have to change if the Jaguars hope to capture the tournament title at the Dothan Progress/Dothan Eagle/Southern Star Holiday Prep Classic presented by The Cochran Firm.

For the second consecutive year the Jaguars will open the tournament against a Class 6A foe. Last season Barbour County edged Robert E. Lee 70-66 in the opening round before being bounced in the second round by eventual champion Bullock County.

This time around, the Jaguars will open up against Opelika, which started the season off 7-0 and now owns an 11-1 mark.

“I hate that we drew Opelika in the first round,” White said. “I was hoping we wouldn’t have to start with another (Class) 6A school like we did last year, but in a blind draw there’s not much you can do about that. We just have to go out and try and play well enough to win and stay in the tournament.”

The Jaguars managed to score a first-round win last season by applying a heavy dose of full-court pressure to the Generals. White isn’t convinced that’s the winning recipe for his squad’s showdown with the Bulldogs.

“Opelika is much quicker and more athletic than Lee was last year,” White said. “I’m not sure we’ll be able to press them like we did Lee. In fact, they might put the press on us. We’re just going to have to be able to adjust as see what works and what doesn’t.”

White also expects to adjust the number of minutes his players play due to the extra length of the Ozark Civic Center floor.

“That longer floor adds a lot of wear and tear,” White said. “It takes a lot more physical stamina to play on a court that length. You may have a guy that’s used to playing all eight minutes of the first period and by the sixth minute he’s worn out because of the extra running. We’ll have to keep an eye on that.”

White believes the added length to the court will place an added emphasis on bench play. That may be good news for the Jaguars.

“Our bench has really come around,” White said. “We’ve been able to sub more than we were able to earlier in the season.”

Taqwain Whigham, Joseph Screws, Jeremy McCrae, Larry Rumph and Nicholas Brooks have all seen increased playing time.

“We’ve had several guys begin to give us valuable minutes and let us rest our starters,” White said. “We’ve gotten better bench play, and that’s going to be important in a tournament like this one. I hope to use that bunch as much as possible.”

Barbour County and Opelika will square off at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 26.