Badgers fall to Libby, 62-47, face No. 1 St. Maries Thursday

The Badgers basketball team was able to keep it close, but were unable to stave off late run By the Libby Loggers, losing 62-47 Saturday at Libby.

“I think we learned a lot about ourselves,” said Head Coach Andy Rice. “I was hoping we would have played better than we did, but I was a bit skeptical because we hadn’t played a game since Sandpoint.”

The Badgers were down 33-29 coming out of halftime, and played inspired ball on both sides of the floor, even taking the lead at one point. But after a Libby timeout, the Loggers regrouped.

“During that timeout, we talked about how we needed to keep doing what we were doing,” Rice said. 

“But we went back to not executing on offense, standing, not moving the ball, settling for one-on-one stuff that hasn’t really been successful for us, and we never could get back into it.”

Rice said he was pleased with the effort of his team coming out after the half, and said the team now just needs to learn to finish.

“We were doing what we needed to do, we were executing our offense, taking care of the ball,” Rice said. “We were moving, we weren’t standing and watching. When the start doing that, we lose the ability to create opportunities for us to score.”

The Badgers will host St. Maries Thursday night, and Rice said he and the team has been talking about what’s been successful for them so far this season.

“We’re trying to figure some stuff out, and yesterday was probably the best practice we’ve had all year,” he said. “I think this loss was one of our worst showings as a team, and maybe that was something we needed to wake ourselves up. But we had a great practice yesterday, and I hope we have another great one today. St. Maries is a good team, they’re ranked number on in the state. But I think if we play the way we’ve been working on, we should be able to compete with them pretty good.”

The Badgers will tip off against St. Maries at 7 p.m Thursday night at Bonners Ferry High School, then travel to Timberlake on Friday to open league play. Badger fans will want to stick around at halftime Thursday, as the 3rd and 4th grade team will be competing.

“The young kids will get a chance to show off what they’ve been working on, and they’re pretty excited about that opportunity,” Rice said. “We hope to get a lot of people there to cheer them on.”