CARMEL – For the majority of Saturday night's high school boys basketball game at Carmel, Warsaw coach Doug Ogle felt his team played well enough to win. It was the other few minutes, however, that saw the Tigers struggle with turnovers and ball handling in a 54-52 loss. The Tigers, who fell to 14-8 on the season, turned the ball over 12 times in the loss. Ten of Warsaw's turnovers were steals by the Class 4A No. 10 Greyhounds, who improved to 17-4. "For a lot of the game, we played well enough to win," said Ogle. "But you gotta play well enough to win for 32 minutes, not 29 or 30. "It's been our ballhandling that's hurt us. We built a lead against Merrillville, we were up by 11 at halftime. We had a lead in overtime at Crown Point. We're disappointed we didn't win, because this would have been a huge win for us, but at the same time it tells us we've got to continue to get better. This is humbling. We know that we've got to improve our ballhandling." A three-pointer by Warsaw junior Jack Rhoades tied the game at 52-52 with 18 seconds remaining. In the final seconds, Carmel missed a shot and Rhoades grabbed the rebound. Warsaw's players immediately signalled for a timeout, but the Tigers were out of timeouts and were whistled for a technical foul. Carmel senior Sterling Brown made 1 of 2 free throw attempts, and then made another charity toss when the Tigers fouled on the ensuing possession. “It wasn’t the timeout at the end that lost us the game,” said Ogle. “Yeah, that hurt us, but our ballhandling down the stretch hurt us, and our defense, too. We let Sterling Brown come off screens and catch-and-shoot twice in a row. “Yeah, I mean, that last play, calling the timeout, hurt. I don’t think I communicated ‘hey we don’t have any timeouts left.’ I shouldn’t assume that they know that. That’s really my fault more than anybody’s. But, it wasn’t the last timeout (that lost us the game), it was all the times we didn’t handle the ball ahead of that. We had three straight possessions where we turned the ball over.” Warsaw led 14-12 after one quarter of play, and the teams were knotted 26-26 at halftime. Carmel led 39-33 early in the fourth quarter, and then the Tigers used a 12-0 run to take a 45-39 advantage. After a three-pointer by Brown tied the game at 45 with 3:11 remaining, the teams traded points until the wild finish, which came a night after the Greyhounds pulled out a 70-68 overtime win against conference foe Warren Central. “That’s a good win for us,” Carmel coach Scott Heady said of beating Warsaw. “That’s a good team. They play well together. Kyle Mangas is a great player. They don’t make a lot of mistakes. They turned it over a little bit tonight, and that helped us, but this is a good win for us.” Mangas led Warsaw with a game-high 26 points, running his streak of 20-point games to 13. Sophomore Nolan Groninger scored seven points in the loss, while senior Jeremy David and Rhoades finished with six each. Brown netted 21 points for Carmel, while sophomore Luke Heady chipped in with 12. The Tigers have lost two in a row and will close out the regular season Friday when they host Carroll.
