Southwest rolls despite some inconsistency in 66-48 playoff win over Woodville-Tompkins

One sign of how a team played is how long it takes before the players and coaches emerge from the locker room.

A 20-minute postgame chat usually indicates a rough night and a loss.

For Southwest, only one of those was part of the equation, ostensibly to avoid the other part making an appearance in a few days.

The Patriots didn’t have their normal accuracy and cohesiveness, but they still had enough of their normal game to roll past Woodville-Tompkins 66-48 Wednesday night in the first round of the GHSA Class A-Division I state tournament.

“I saw some things that will come back and bite you later on,” Southwest head coach Monquencio Hardnett said after about 20 minutes with his team. “Things that will be detrimental to what you’re trying to do, such as (not) sharing the basketball. Defensively, we’re not defending like we should on every possession, taking plays off defensively.

“We can’t be having lapses right now. It’s contagious.”

The Patriots improved to 24-6 while the Wolverines hailing from Savannah ended their season at 9-18.

Southwest has a somewhat familiar second-round opponent. Region 2 rival East Laurens will visit Southwest on Saturday at either 5 or 6 p.m.

Southwest and East Laurens played only once this season, the Patriots winning 70-59 back on Dec. 9. The Patriots will work on some things from Wednesday while all but starting from scratch in preparing for a region rival.

“It’s been so long since we played them,” he said of the third-place Falcons. “I’ll get back to work tonight, and I’ll prepare like hell like I always do for East Laurens. You can trust me, we’ll be ready on Saturday.”

CJ Howard went for 23 points for Southwest, with 21 from Chase Dupree and 12 from Alex Butts.

Guard Zhamir Glover and forward Nehmir Gullup led Woodville-Tompkins with 13 points each.

Dupree did not seem his usual self shooting despite the 21-point effort, in part because of a slight hand injury on one drive and another visit to the floor late in the first quarter. During a timeout in the final 90 seconds, Hardnett went straight to Dupree with a scowl that was followed by a hug.

“It was more of a ‘don’t hang your head,’” Hardnett said. “‘Yeah, you’re not making shots, but it’s because of your body language.’ He looked like he was a little bit antsy.”

That wasn’t the only time Hardnett was slightly unsettled by the Patriots.

“Some body language stuff, hanging your head, assignments,” he said. “But we’re a veteran team.”

Southwest trailed for only 15 seconds, regaining the lead for good on Butts’ 3-pointer with 4:55 left in the first quarter. The hosts opened up their first eight-point lead almost three minutes into the second quarter on two Dupree free throws and upped that to 32-21 at halftime after two buckets in the final minute by Jonathan Hurley, on a layup after a sweet feed from Howard and then a putback.

It took less than four minutes into the third quarter to expand it to 19 points. Southwest was aided by Woodville-Tompkins’ inability to finish, as the Wolverines got to the rim a whole lot more than Hardnett liked, or expected, leading to some late fourth-quarter timeouts.

“Way more than I’d like,” said a cringing Hardnett. “It was sickening.”

The visitors kept playing hard but couldn’t gain much ground. The smallest margin in the second half after 19 was 13 points twice after maxing out at 21 briefly in the fourth quarter.

Even nowhere near their sharpest, the Patriots had a steady effort and never let Woodville-Tompkins threaten in the second half. That was a bright spot, a list Hardnett hopes to add to with a more normal outing on Saturday.

“If you’re not doing the right things, now the teams get better as you go,” he said. “Naturally they’re going to get better. Games get tougher. And the fundamental stuff that you should be doing, you’re not doing, you’re not going to win.

“And we should know that after being in the state championship last year.”