EARLY – The members of the Early Longhorns basketball program gained a memory that will last with them likely for the remainder of their lives as they hosted Australian Showtime Basketball’s Xavier squad Wednesday night on the first leg of a tour of the United States.
The Longhorns came up short on the scoreboard, 52-45, but the competition Xavier provided during the contest will not only help Early later on in the season, but also serve as a proud moment of reflection years down the road.
“It was a great experience,” said Early head coach Eric Davis. “We didn’t know a lot about what it would be like, but you have to do things like this out of the box to build basketball. I think it paid it off for us. Xavier was amazing, they were super respectful and they played hard and gave us a lot of good looks. This is the kind of basketball we’ll see in district with Brock and Peaster.”
The Longhorns trailed Xavier – which had a significant height advantage – 18-4 after one quarter, closed the gap to 31-24 at halftime, and scored the first seven points of the third quarter to draw even at 31 as the perimeter game heated up. Xavier then responded with the next 12 points and led 46-33 heading to the fourth quarter. There, Early trimmed the deficit to a bucket, 47-45, with 2:47 left, but Xavier tallied the final five points.
Kamden Gamblin, who led Early with 16 points, said, “This is probably one of the most exciting things I’ve ever done playing high school basketball. They were big and strong so I didn’t know what to expect from them. They’re a faster team because over there they have shot clocks, so it makes them have to move the ball faster and settle down and be composed. It gave us a really good look at what it’s going to be like playing the tougher teams in the Metroplex in the playoffs. It was a really great experience.”
Xavier Ah Tong, who scored a game-high 21 points for Xavier, commented, “Coming over from Australia, it’s a lot different vibe and culture and the basketball over here is a lot stronger. And definitely having a crowd like this, we wanted to feed off it. Being in a game where we could be more physical, we enjoyed it a lot more. The Longhorns are great players, especially No. 4 (Gamblin) shout out to him, he had an amazing game. But we just stayed together, played as a team and won the game.”
Along with Gamblin, Rohyn Price poured in 12 points for Early followed by Dalton Adams with 11, and Jacob McDaniel, Andrew Caten and Weston Barton with two points apiece.
Xavier also received 11 points from Yarni Appla, eight from Nathan Cray, five from Ned Henderson, four from Owen Ireland, two from Samuel Chisnall and one point from Ned Bramal.
In the other two games Wednesday, the Early JV teams dropped decisions of 33-22 and 71-14.
The Australians flew into Dallas Tuesday and toured AT&T Stadium, then embarked for Early Wednesday morning. Next for the Australians is a trip to Corsicana for a weekend tournament, then their 18-day tour of America will eventually take them to New York and Los Angeles before flying home on Dec. 22.
Meanwhile, next up for the Longhorns (5-2) is the three-day Hamilton tournament, which begins Thursday.
Reflecting on the entire evening and asked what will be remembered most, Gamblin said, “their accents.”
