Players nip Summitt's Tennessee Heat

Turnovers cost Summitt's team in early game

Not wanting to start their weekend off the wrong way, the Indiana SYF Players rediscovered why defense helps win championships.

SYF Players held the Tennessee Heat without a basket from the floor in the first 5:47 of the fourth quarter, and turned a tight game into a 62-51 win in Pool B action in the Under 16 AAU national tournament Friday afternoon at Austin Peay's Dunn Center.

Scott Wood turned consecutive Heat turnovers into a dunk and 3-pointer early in the quarter, allowing the SYF Players to shift the game's momentum.

"Our coach was on us the whole game because we weren't playing our usual defense," said Wood, a 6-foot-5 forward out of Marion, Ind. "We didn't have the whole month of June, because that's the period you're with your high school team. Coach said if we didn't pick it up then, we were going to get beat. We didn't want to start our weekend off like that."

Wood finished with 17 points, while John Taylor and Marcus Jackson scored 11 points each.

The Heat were paced by Trever Pryor's 25 points. Donovan Whiteside had nine.

"Against pressure we made some ill-advised decisions, we turned the ball over too much," Heat coach Pat Summitt said. "We played too much one-on-one. We put ourselves in the position to play even, or even get up on them a couple of times, because I thought we executed a lot better offensively.

"But we gave up a lot of paint points off dribble penetration and obviously not doing a great job of blocking out."

The Heat led once early in the first quarter, and were within striking distance for the game's first 26 minutes. SYF Players led 13-12 after the first quarter, pulled out to a seven-point lead early in the second, only to watch the Heat pull within 30-29 at the half.

"They (Heat) are a well-coached team and well disciplined and we really didn't play well defensively in the first half, at least as well as I would like," SYF Players coach Jeff Allen said. "I thought our athleticism in the fourth quarter finally got us to where we needed to be. We got in the open floor and created some opportunities for ourselves."

The game was tied twice in the third quarter, and the two teams exchanged the lead five times. The Heat led by three on four occasions only to watch the Players answer each time. Jackson's layup with 20 seconds left tied the game at 44 going in the fourth.

Wood's dunk off a turnover with 6:50 remaining, followed by his 3-pointer off a turnover seconds later, shifted the advantage to SYF Players.

"Scott Wood is a talented athlete and Scott had struggled with his shot earlier in the game, but he's the kind of kid that when he's open he can really kill you and bury that 3," Allen said. "He really helped us in the fourth quarter."

Summitt agreed Wood's five points off turnovers came at a crucial moment.

"It's a game of momentum and they generated a lot of momentum just through beating us to the paint and getting good shots, and also off their defense," Summitt said.