Young Portageville squad to gain experience in busy week

During the recent Bloomfield Christmas Tournament, veteran Portageville High School varsity boy’s basketball coach TJ Smith lamented his team’s lack of experience, which resulted in inconsistent execution.

“Our strength is that we’re fairly well rounded,” Smith said at the time. “Our biggest weakness is that we’re not very consistent at it at times.”

The young Bulldogs (3-6), who play just three seniors in a nine-man rotation, will be much more experienced by the end of this week after playing four games in six days.

Portageville hosted New Madrid County Central on Monday and will visit Holcomb (1-5) today at 7:15 p.m.

The busy week continues with a Thursday match-up at Scott County Central (2-3) at 7:30 p.m. before facing a very tough South Pemiscot squad (3-0) on Saturday at 5:15 p.m.

“We can really attack the rim at times,” Smith said. “We can shoot it at times. We guard really well at times, but not for 32 minutes.

“Our strength is that we have the potential to be very well rounded and do everything well.”

One problem, thus far, is that the inexperienced Bulldogs have faced an arduous schedule.

In seven of Portageville’s first nine games, it has played teams that have already won at least five games in the first month of this season (East Carter twice, Bernie, Class 1 No. 3-ranked Risco, Caruthersville, Senath-Hornersville, and Hayti).

“We’ve got four sophomores (Evan Winsor, Jack Bell, Tanner Hopgood, and Mason Babb) playing minutes,” Smith said. We’ve got a senior who has never played varsity before (and) two juniors who have never played varsity, so this is part of being young.”

Smith has rolled out juniors Antonio Hickenbottom and Eli Wheeler in the starting lineup along with seniors Xay Bogan and Huston Partin while Bell also starts.

Those athletes are joined by senior Jay Bogan, Hopgood, Winsor, and Babb off the bench.

“We are trying to find that consistency,” Smith explained. “As we have gone through every game, we have gotten a little bit better and a little bit better.

“We’ve got to keep grinding and find that (consistency) for 32 minutes.”

Xay Bogan is the Bulldogs’ only returning starter from 2023-24.

“(Xay) Bogan is an excellent scorer from anywhere on the court,” Smith told Semoball.com earlier this season. “His ability to handle the ball and create his own shot makes him a problem for opposing defenses.”

Against a very good Bernie team in the Bloomfield Tournament, Bell, a 6-foot-2 guard, was impressive, despite his youth.

Bell knocked down three 3-pointers and finished with a team-leading 19 points.

“To play with Bernie, who is a good team,” Smith said, “we felt good. We played with them and competed.”