MacArthur seeks late-season strides

A youthful MacArthur boys’ basketball team enters the tail end of the 2016-17 campaign looking to build some confidence heading into next season.

A 58-42 loss to Great Neck South at home last Saturday dropped MacArthur to 1-7 in Conference AA-II and 4-11 overall, but the Generals have been competitive in most games. This was the case Saturday when MacArthur, whose roster is comprised mainly of juniors, was tied with Great Neck early in the second half before the Rebels seized control.

“Every league game we have been either tied or leading in the third quarter so we have been right there, but we just can’t get over the hump,” MacArthur head coach Eric Rubin said. “We’re getting better as the season goes along.”

MacArthur was toe-to-toe with the Rebels in the first half Saturday jumping out to a 7-0 lead and trailing 17-15 after the first quarter when Mike Manfredo hit a floater at the buzzer.  A Ryan Wall three-pointer to open the second half knotted the score at 33-33, but the Generals then began turning the ball over against Great Neck’s aggressive full-court press leading to 14-straight Rebel points as part of a 23-5 run.

“I thought we did a good job in the first half against the press for the most part, but the second half we struggled a bit,” Rubin said. “This season has been a lot of inconsistencies in certain games where some days it’s the press, some days we can’t score against a zone so it’s been a lot of different things at different times.”

A positive last Saturday was the play of junior center Nick Purcell, who tallied a career-high 11 points. Rubin said he decided to start Purcell following an impressive week of practice.

“He had the best game of his career,” said Rubin of Purcell. “He was physical, he was attacking the basket, playing tough defense and helping us on the press break. He was outstanding so hopefully that a sign of things to come.”

The Generals were without junior small forward Kyle Acquavella due to an illness. Acquavella is MacArthur’s second leading scorer and had 17 points in a 57-48 win against Long Beach on Dec. 23.

Junior point guard Benny Orlando has led the offense and is averaging 11.2 points per game, but was held to six points last Saturday.  Orlando scored a season-high 24 points in 55-54 heartbreaker to Manhasset on Jan. 13. “He is our best scorer and our best ball handler,” Rubin said of Orlando. “He is a real valuable player for us.”

MacArthur is next in action this Saturday at Herricks for a noon tipoff. The Generals’ final home game is on tap for Monday against Manhasset at 6:30 p.m. before closing the season at Mepham on Feb. 10.

“We basically have whole team coming back next year so we just want to see improvement every game,” Rubin said. “We’re hoping to finally get over the hump in some of these final league games.”