Panther men’s basketball is back in action.
More than five months from their first regular-season game, Franklin’s varsity and JV teams have been hard at work, holding their first offseason practices of the year. In a Summer League scrimmage with Cherokee June 3 on Tom Raby Court, both teams outplayed the Braves in two hours of live intersquad action.
JV
For the first scrimmage, both JV teams took the court for two 20-minute periods with a running clock. The game was quite fast-paced in the early goings, with both sides quickly moving the ball upcourt to maximize possessions. Rising freshmen Paxton Sutton and Daiveon Hall looked sharp throughout the period, with Hall posting six points and Sutton adding six points and one assist. Down 10-6 midway through, Cherokee regrouped to end the “half” tied 20-20.
Sutton stayed hot into the second period, scoring four of his team’s first six points for a narrow 26-25 lead. Sophomore Damion Bowles finished the scrimmage strong for Franklin, racking up two steals and two points in the final minutes to end the contest up 46-41.
Varsity
Following the JV scrimmage, both varsity teams took the court for four 10-minute ‘quarters’. Starting the scrimmage along with center Brayden Hervey and forwards Will Rauers and Noah Brannon, guards Max McClure and Braylen Dezarn shot out of the gate for Franklin, with Dezarn posting nine points and McClure adding five points and two assists. While Brannon suffered an apparent ankle injury and did not return, Franklin ended the period up 19-12.
Franklin’s second unit took the court for the second ‘quarter,’ getting four points and a steal from rising junior guard Aiden Pitts. Pitts’ efforts helped his team extend their lead throughout the period, ending the ‘half’ up 38-24.
Cherokee came out swinging to begin the third ‘quarter,’ scoring its first eight points to cut their deficit to six. After talking things over in a timeout however, Dezarn returned the favor, posting eight quick points of his own including back-to-back 3-pointers. Rauers added two more points and assisted a McClure 3-pointer to end the period with a commanding lead, 53-37. Dezarn added four more points in the fourth to cap a stellar individual day, missing just two shots all evening and patiently directing traffic on offense. Franklin ended the scrimmage up 70-47.
“I thought it was a good scrimmage. It was the first time that we’ve been together this summer, and we had a couple of days’ practice last week once we were allowed to get together,” said head coach Doug Plemmons after the scrimmage, referring to N.C. High School Athletic Association rules restricting out-of-season practice during the school year. “I thought they looked good. I thought we were under control, I thought we moved the basketball, I thought we shared the basketball. Early on I thought Cherokee shot the ball extremely well from outside, but as we brought a little more pressure out to them and as the game kind of drug on a little bit, I thought Cherokee perhaps got tired and weren’t making a lot of those shots that they made early in the scrimmage.”
Still in the first week of their offseason program, Monday’s scrimmage afforded Franklin a chance to experiment with different lineups and strategies without the pressure of the regular season. While in recent years Franklin’s starting fives have played the lion’s share of the team’s minutes, Plemmons says the depth of this year’s team affords him some extra luxuries.
“We had several kids that came off the bench last night … and we’re emphasizing this because we’re very athletic this year, and we’re very deep – we have a lot of depth,” he said. “And so we’re gonna try to use those two factors and really put a lot of effort out there and not be afraid to get tired, knowing that we’ve got people sitting on the bench that are very capable of going in and playing minutes. … We didn’t show any full-court pressure last night, but we’re gonna amp that up as the summer goes along and we get in a little better shape. We’re gonna try to play as hard as we can play for 94 feet, and we may give up a little bit early in the game, but I think as the game drags on and we keep that constant pressure on them I think we’ll see that take effect.”
After scrimmaging Cherokee, two days later the team traveled to Johnson University in Knoxville for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes team camp. There they were scheduled to play seven games in three days from June 5-7.