It’s difficult to imagine what a challenging season it has been for Longwood coach Keyon Smothers and his team.
Smothers, a former star at Washington, is a young coach in just his second season. He started the year with a team full of players who had never played varsity basketball. That’s quite a challenging task in the Red-South/Central, one of the Public League’s superconferences.
The Panthers earned promotion to the Red after the 2019-20 season. Smothers felt he had a team ready to compete with the best teams in the city last season. But Chicago International Charter Schools, which runs Longwood, decided it was best not to play basketball during the abbreviated, one-month COVID season.
“We had seven seniors last year that moved on to play college basketball last year,” Smothers said. “It hurt missing that season. That’s why it is hard to finish games. We are learning on the fly and fighting through, trying to understand what varsity basketball is like.”
You would never know that Longwood senior Terrance Jones, who opened the Panthers’ 48-43 win against Perspectives-MSA in the first round of the Public League playoffs Thursday with 12 points in four minutes, was a first-year varsity player.
“It was rough being new to varsity this year and playing so many tough teams,” Jones said. “But I had a lot of people that believed in me, and that helped. Scoring just comes naturally to me.”
Jones finished with 17 points and five rebounds.
“He’s leading the Red-South/Central in scoring, I believe,” Smothers said. “He’s at 23 a game. The kid is leading us in every category, rebounds, scoring and assists. Everyone would have noticed him last year when he was a junior if we played.”
Longwood (11-7) has a strong backcourt with Jones and fellow senior Da’Qwon Hargrove, who is a dependable ballhandler and the heart of the team, according to Smothers.
“He’s the one that makes us go,” Smothers said. “He’s the one that can calm us down no matter what type of game he is having. We call him ‘Big Game Qwon.’ He’s a leader.”
Longwood led by six points at halftime. Perspectives-MSA (14-12), which won the White-West with a 9-0 record and will play in the Red next season, cut the deficit to one on Marquise Perry’s layup and bucket with 2:41 to play.
The Panthers went 4-for-8 from the free-throw line from there. Probably not good enough to seal the win, but they kept the Wolves from scoring again.
“We’ve had a lot of growing pains,” Smothers said. “A new group just doesn’t understand it without going through it. But we have a great chance in the state playoffs as a Class 2A team. As long as we come play our game. We’ll go as far as Terrence Jones takes us.”
Perry led Perspectives-MSA with 12 points, and Darrion Mason added 10 points and four rebounds.
“We just fell apart a little bit at the end,” Wolves coach Waybon McConnell said. “Just turnovers and making mental mistakes down the stretch. But this was valuable for the guys coming back next year, just to see it.”
Longwood will face the Mather-Clark winner in the second round Friday.
Watch the final minute of Perspectives-MSA at Longwood:
— Michael O'Brien (@michaelsobrien) February 4, 2022
