Ely hoops looking for identity, leadership

Posted on 07 January 2016 by LeslieM

sports010716By Gary Curreri

Since the 2012 season, Blanche Ely’s boys’ basketball team has won three state titles (2012, 2013 and 2015) in addition to forging a 106-11 record during that span.

The team lost five times in 2014 when it dropped four games to Boyd Anderson and one to Cardinal Gibbons, the last time it lost more than three times in a year. In fact, not since 2008, the year after Blanche Ely won the Class 6A state title, have the Tigers lost more than six games in a single year. They finished 18-8 that season.

Blanche Ely coach Melvin Randall is in his 23rd year, including the past 15 with the Tigers, and has an overall record of 514-153 including, by his standards, a pedestrian 9-7 mark this season following the team’s 69-47 loss to Dacula (GA) in the Kingdom of the Sun Tournament in Ocala on New Year’s Eve. The team has suffered five losses in the past seven games.

It’s a whole new group,” Randall said. “It is a young, young, young, young, young team. The seniors that we have are not stepping up. They are still hiding behind the eight ball waiting for those players that graduated to pop on the court, and that is frustrating.”

We just don’t have any leadership,” added Randall, who won state titles in 1997 with Deerfield (Class 5A) and his win with the Bucks in 1999 (Class 6A) came at the expense of his current school Ely, 77-69. After moving over to Ely, Randall won state titles in 2007 (Class 6A), 2012 (Class 7A), 2013 (Class 7A) and 2015 (7A). “I just have to raise these young boys and go from there.”

Randall, whose team moved over to District 14-7A with the likes of St. Thomas Aquinas and Fort Lauderdale, said the team is still searching for its identity.

We just have to play ball,” Randall said. “We just have not really bought into Tiger basketball.

It goes back to missing the summer, of [not] playing during the summer,” Randall said. “They decided to go and do other things. We’ve got injuries, but my thing is I am very, very competitive and I don’t like to pose excuses. If we have five players to get out on the court, we need those five players to play.”

Randall is counting on senior Mark Houston (SG, PG) and injured senior Trevor Goodrum (SF, PF) in addition to junior Geremy Taylor (SF, SG).

They are the main ones because they have been there,” Randall said. “Not only on the local level, but on the state and national level as well. These are the ones who should really be catering to these young guys and raising them, and we’re not doing a good job of that. Because, if we are not doing our jobs, how can we teach it to those young kids? That’s where the problem is right there.”

Randall said it is a different feeling to be taking so many losses this early in the season. The Tigers suffered two losses by one point – Pebblebrook (GA), 64-63, and Sagemont, 58-57. The team also has a 74-73 win over Northeast and a 73-71 win over Fort Lauderdale.

Yeah, you get a little spoiled,” Randall said. “It’s not a great feeling to be on that other end after not being there for a while. We were blessed. It is something that we learn from. The one-point losses that we lost, and the buzzer beaters that we won – we will learn from all of those. These babies have to grow up quick.”

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