A takeaway from the weirdest weekend in Greyhounds basketball: The Greyhounds might be unbeatable, when they are motivated/wanting to play. A huge Friday night home win over MIC opponent Pike led into a disappointing Saturday night loss on a heartbreaker at Brownsburg. Let’s dive in.

Friday night was a great chance at home for the Greyhounds at home to pick up a MIC win, and they did it in dominant fashion. First half, the Hounds shot 65% from the field and 50% from three, by far their best shooting performance for any half this season. They cooled off second half shooting 50% from the field and 20% from the field. Scoring was incredibly well balanced for the Greyhounds (at least amongst starters) as Pete Suder had 14, Sam Orme had 14, Jared Bonds had 15, Charlie Williams had 10, and Josh Whack had 6. The lone Hounds scoring off the bench was 2 for Josh Rauh, and 3 for Garwey Dual. Every person on the Hounds bench came in the game, including Alex Couto’s varsity debut for the last 8 seconds. The only alarming stat of the night for the Hounds? 15 turnovers. While that might work in a game that they shoot the lights out at, its not going to get the job done in the playoffs or in a 30-point game that the Hounds found themselves in on Saturday night. Overall my takeaway from this game? The Hounds beat a very good 10-2 Pike team by a lot of points, and set themselves up to be the team-to-beat in the MIC and in Central Indiana. 

Saturday night was the complete flipside of Friday night’s incredibly dominant win. The Hounds drove about 45-minutes south to Brownsburg to take on the 10-4 Bulldogs. Although having an inflated record from playing bad teams, the Bulldogs were certainly not a team the Hounds could look past. Turns out, that’s exactly what they did. The Hounds went down early, then back up by a good bit, before allowing Brownsburg back into the game late where they pulled off the upset. What was the key to the Hounds loss on Saturday? It goes twofold. First, they couldn’t shoot the ball. Shooting 2/8 from three in the first half before going 0/6 from behind the arc in the second half. Hounds shot 39% from the field and 14% from three. Second, the Hounds just didn’t look like they wanted to be here. 4 steals and 4 blocks total is not good enough against a short team like Brownsburg that shouldn’t be able to score on the Hounds in the paint. No other stats define this lack of energy, it just was a visual thing. The Hounds looked flat on offense and lackadaisical on defense. The buzzer-beating three from the Bulldogs just capped off a frustrating night for the Greyhounds in which they’ll have to figure out. It was just 4 years ago that the Hounds lost to the Brownsburg Bulldogs in a year where they went undefeated (other than that game) and won state. 

Overall, I am still on the train that the Greyhounds will win state. Why can I say this after they lost to a mediocre Brownsburg team? Because the Hounds are unbeatable in big games or even just games that they have a desire to play in. The only trip up for the Hounds could be a two-game-day in regionals or semi-state when they go into the second game tired. The Hounds looked tired against Brownsburg, but they looked like the best team in the state against Pike. A weird weekend? Yes. A weekend that will inevitably lead towards better basketball from the Hounds? Also yes.