Since he came to St. John's College (SJC), Herbie Brown Jr. has been on a winning spree that is comparable to no other. Based on his success, he has been arguably the best senior girls basketball coach in the country.
Brown has won four of the past five Bahamas Association of Independent Secondary Schools (BAISS) basketball titles, and this year, he is headed down that road again as he has his girls off to another undefeated start. The SJC Giants trampled the Aquinas College Aces yesterday, 33-10, at St. John's. They took control of the game early, and cruised over their private school counterparts in the wire-to-wire win. It was their best offensive showing of the season, but Brown knows that there are still some things that they need to work on if they are going to win their third straight BAISS title this year, and fifth in the past six years.
"I'm happy for the win, but we were sloppy for the first two and a half quarters. We started to do some things differently as the game went along and started executing a little better, but we have to get off to better starts in the future," said Giants' coach Brown. "In essence, we just want to thank God for the win and thank God for the turn around. It started out sloppy, but it ended up in our favor."
The Giants were paced by Petrel Pickstock with 14 points yesterday. Jody Ford added seven, and Dayne McKenzie and Semone Thompson contributed six apiece. Bijon Lockhart scored four points to lead the Aces. The Giants were never threatened yesterday. They led 6-1 after the first quarter and were ahead 14-2 at the half. By the end of the third, there was no doubt as to what the final result would be as the Giants took a 15-point lead into the fourth quarter.
Despite the winless start (0-2) for her girls, Aces' coach Sherline Moss is optimistic based on the progress they have shown so far.
"I'm happy because a lot of them have shown a lot of improvement and that tells me that the program is working," said Moss. "We know that there's still a lot of work to be done in terms of offense and defense. I think that when we get back to practices, we have to focus on moving the ball more and making better passes. That is one of the areas that we fell down on today."
Moss is not giving up her girls making the post-season just yet. They played two of the better teams in the league, St. John's and St. Augustine's College, in their first two games, so Moss is optimistic that they will be able to pick up some wins as the season goes on.
"Well, nothing is out of reach... I always preach that to my girls. Right now, our program is based on development," she said. "Our job is to get the girls more basketball savvy. We want them to work on their individual games and develop some skills on their own, so that when we come together, we'll be able to work better as a team," added Moss.
The Giants were in total control of the game from the opening tap, but they really picked it up defensively in the second half. They forced quite a few turnovers and were able to score some easy transition points from their defensive pressure.
"Defense is the key," said Giants' coach Brown. "I think that once we get progressively better on that end of the ball, by the grace of God we'll be right back where we were last year and the year before that. It will definitely be tight down the stretch because there are some good teams out there, but if we execute defensively, we will be right in the mix. There are some teams out there but we are focussed on what we need to do as a team. If we do what we need to do, we will be alright," he added.
The Giants swept the Queen's College Comets in the senior girls championship last year, and swept the St. Augustine's College Big Red Machine the year before that.

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