No. 4 Warriors bounce back big in East-West Classic

WORLAND - Opening the season with a 67-64 loss to Douglas at the East-West Classic in Buffalo did not sit well with the Worland Warriors, as they cruised to double-digit victories against Pinedale and Lander Saturday at Buffalo High School.

"We were better, I think we learned the hard way against Douglas that it won't be quite as easy as the boys thought it would be," said WHS boys basketball coach Aaron Abel. "With Lander, they're going to be a very good team. They had to play the toughest schedule of anyone. They played a good Rawlins team on night one, played Buffalo the next day and three and half hours after that had to play us. I think their legs were pretty tired and I don't think that's the same Lander team we'll see when we play them down the road.

"It was good for us to bounce back from a tough loss Friday and play better. As we'll show the boys in practice we still had a lot of defensive breakdowns and still have a lot of things to work on. We learned a lot of lessons in a short amount of time."

The Warriors beat Pinedale 82-53 and closed out the Classic with a 76-53 win against Lander. After leading Worland in scoring against Douglas with 28 points, sophomore Rudy Sanford dropped 21 vs. Pinedale and 30 against Lander.

Abel credited smarter play with Worland's turnaround, which allowed the starters to log more minutes together.

"I felt like we just played smarter. Our starting lineup is playing really well together right now and that's really fun to see. They were able to spend more time on the court together on Saturday. I was a little bit smarter with my lineups and how I rotated our bench in and out. I felt like that was a big change from Friday to Saturday," said Abel.

As well as Saturday went for the Warriors, it doesn't mean they played perfectly, there are still areas that need work. Specifically for Worland, it's their defense on ball-screens and dribble handoffs.

"The biggest thing is our ball-screen and dribble handoff defense, even in the games Saturday we were getting exposed in those two areas. As we start to think about Buffalo on this Saturday and the challenge they'll pose, we'll have to worry about our press offense. We'll have to worry about their quickness and their five-out offense and how we're going to keep them from spreading us out and getting to the rim.

"We'll prepare for Buffalo but we also have to worry about the things we're going to struggle with all year long. Two of those things are ball-screen and dribble handoff defense, we've got to be better about communicating our action on that and getting more consistent. We also need multiple efforts, I feel like right now that our defense is really content with having one good action on a defensive possession. But you have to guard multiple screens, multiple cuts, you need multiple efforts to get a defensive stop."

Worland heads to Buffalo on Saturday for a matchup with 3A's defending champs and No. 1-ranked Bison. The game figures to be a track meet, as both teams are likely the most athletic in the state. Getting back on defense and taking care of the ball will be an absolute must for the Warriors if they are to leave Buffalo High School with their third win of the season.

"With Buffalo, they're the one team that's faster than us. As a lot of teams found out, we're more athletic than most the teams we'll play. Buffalo is extremely quick and have five guys that can push the ball up the floor, similar to us. We'll talk a lot about transition defense and how we'll have to get back in 2.5 seconds and set our defense and not let them score in transition. Not turning the ball over is a big part of that too. When you commit live ball turnovers they're probably going to turn them into points."

Tipoff between the Warriors and Bison will be at 4:30 p.m.