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January 22, 2025
By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X
When John Glenn High hosted Oxford Academy this past Monday, someone was going to leave the gymnasium with its first 605 League win to close out the first round of league action. And although the game was miles apart from the first four league games in which Glenn was outscored by an average of 54 points, the Eagles couldn’t recover from a mistake-filled opening quarter.
Glenn turned the ball over 10 times, had just as many rebounds and saw the Patriots go on a 16-3 run over the last 4:02 of the stanza en route to a 68-42 victory. After the first quarter, Glenn turned the ball over 10 times and had 34 rebounds.
“I would say the beginning of the game was slow,” said Glenn first-year head coach David Dunbar. “We were there, but I will say we had a lot of mistakes from inbounding the ball where our guys weren’t running to their spots. Instead of calling a timeout and wasting our timeouts, I think [our plyers] were frantic and scared to throw the ball.”
Dunbar is Glenn’s third head coach in as many seasons and fourth in the last five as the program has now had a dozen head coaches since the 1998-1999 season.
The Eagles trailed 6-2 before junior Bundana Adams, one of three players coming back from last season’s 12-16 team, scored twice within 40 seconds, the second off his only steal, to tie the game. That would be the team’s last field goal until junior Jonathan Lara’s basket with 91 seconds left in the quarter made it 17-9.
The scoring drought continued in the second quarter as Justin Yoo added consecutive baskets in a span of 16 seconds to make it 26-9 before senior Caiden Recinos hit a three-pointer with 5:06 left in the half, making it 26-12. The Eagles wouldn’t get closer than 14 points the remainder of the way as Adams, Lara and Recinos were the only offense the Eagles had in the half and accounted for all but two points when the game had concluded.
Although Glenn (8-8, 0-5) trailed 39-17 at the half, it played better in the second half, going on runs of 5-3 early in the third quarter and 10-6 over the last 3:44 of the stanza. The Eagles would then score all 10 of its fourth quarter points in a span of 3:06, going from a 56-32 contest to 61-42. But they missed all four field goals they attempted over the final 3:11 of the game.
“Coming into the game, I told them not to worry so much about the score or the press,” said Dunbar. “I just told them to play their game, and everything will come full circle. Now granted, we had some minor mistakes, and I just told them at halftime we’re still in the game. There’s nothing to get mad at; there’s nothing to be frustrated about, whether the calls go our way or another way. With that being said, and a few words of encouragement, they were able to turn the second half around even though we didn’t get the win. But it felt like a win because they progressed in a better way than they did in the first half.”
Adams scored a game-high 22 points on seven of 21 shooting from the field and made seven pf 12 free throws. He also pulled down eight rebounds while Recinos scored 11 points with five rebounds and Lara added 15 rebounds with seven points. Senior Kuntigi Adams was also strong on the glass with nine boards.
Glenn, which is trying to stay competitive both in league and out of league, won seven of its first 10 games but has found the league obviously tougher than the competition it faced in November and December. The Eagles will face Oxford Academy again on Friday, this time on the road, before going to Whitney High on Tuesday.
“It’s a great experience,” said Dunbar of his first season at Glenn. “Coming from the background of playing college basketball…establishing what I’ve learned in college and in high school from any coach I’ve played for and be able to show that to the kids here and them understand what it’s like to play at the next level.
“It’s fun; I really can’t say nothing too bad,” he continued. “It’s fun being a first-time coach. You never know what to expect; you never know what the game level is going to be.”
