At 7:58 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 24, the New Albany Bulldogs boys basketball squad burst onto the floor of the Doghouse for their final pre-game warmups.
The school band, modest in size but spunky, played the NAHS fight song (“Far Above Cayuga’s Waters”), and as pre-game introductions commenced for the season opener against Bloomington South, the hometown fans were finally forced to contemplate life without Romeo Langford and Sean East.
Tip-off came at 8:03, a slightly awkward toss that ended up back in the hands of New Albany’s Jordan Thomas, who started in place of injured Julien Hunter and jumped center.
A new era had begun.
Thirty-two minutes later, the 12th-ranked Dogs walked off with a hard-fought 49-42 victory over No. 7 South to preserve a home winning streak that now numbers 42 games.
New Albany’s last loss came on Dec. 20, 2014, a 38-37 defeat at the hands of Carmel. For the record, Langford was a freshman and scored 7 points.
On Saturday, playing without two-year starter Hunter who sprained his ankle a few weeks ago, the new-look Bulldogs were sharp — including freshmen Tucker Biven and Kaden Stanton. Both knocked down their first varsity field-goal attempts. Both shots were 3-pointers.
“I thought the two freshmen were outstanding,” New Albany coach Jim Shannon said. “I mean, for their first varsity game … you put ‘em in there and see what they’re made of. … They can play.”
The Dogs started hot but South pulled into a tie at 13 on Anthony Leal’s reverse layup just before the first-quarter buzzer. New Albany trailed only once in the game, at 29-28 after another Leal bucket midway through the third period. A Derrick Stevenson’s right-corner 3 regained the lead for New Albany, and the score was tied at 31 and again at 33 before Stanton closed out third-quarter scoring with a 3 from the right corner.
New Albany outscored the visitors 13-9 in the fourth to salt away the victory.
Stevenson led the winners with 13 points, while junior Trey Hourigan added 12, including key free throws down the stretch. Senior Chris Johnson, battling foul trouble all night long, scored six, including a clinching bucket off a Biven lob.
“I thought we played some really good team basketball tonight,” Shannon said. “We moved it around pretty well, and I think everybody got into the scoring column a little bit and kinda spread the wealth around. There wasn’t a whole lot of wealth because we didn’t score a lot, but we were able to eke it out.”
Shannon, of course, will be asked all season about life after Langford.
“Our kids have been practicing really hard,” Shannon said, “and we still feel like we’ve got some really good players.
“Obviously, our kids and our coaches wanted to do well because we know that the average person is probably thinking, ‘Well, we’ll see how they’ll play without him. We’ll see if they can coach.’ “You don’t want to come out of the gate and be looking like, ‘Yeah, we can’t play without him and we can’t coach.’
“So at least this solidifies that we have coaches and players that, we’re all right. We have a lot of things to get better at. We’re not deep anyway, Without Julien Hunter … we got a win against Bloomington South. You’re gotta love that.”
New Albany returns to action on Saturday with a trip to Evansville Harrison, then returns home to take on Floyd Central on Friday, Dec. 7.
