[email\u00a0protected]<\/a><\/p>\nThrough a 10-2 start to the season for the Plano East boys basketball team, the biggest constant has been the play of its defense.<\/p>\n
The Panthers\u2019 defense again rose to the occasion at last week\u2019s 13th Annual Craig Bowers Memorial Tournament in Royse City.<\/p>\n
Plano East held all four opponents to fewer than 60 points and capped off a perfect 4-0 showing with a 47-37 win over crosstown rival Plano, ranked No. 6 in last week\u2019s Texas Association of Basketball Coaches Class 6A state poll, in the championship game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were so many encouraging parts about the weekend,\u201d said head coach Matt Wester. \u201cIt was great to see different guys step up in a big way. It was great to see that we could build all week on our big win over Pebblebrook at the Thanksgiving Hoopfest. Finally, it was encouraging to see how well we played defense. Thirteen games into the season and 12 times we have held the other team under 60 points.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plano East\u2019s defense was particularly on point against a Plano team that came into the first-place tilt on a nine-game winning streak.<\/p>\n
After the Wildcats jumped out to an 11-10 first-quarter lead, the Panthers (10-2) outscored Plano 37-26 over the game\u2019s final three quarters while limiting the Wildcats (11-2) to 15 points in the second half and 27.3% shooting overall.<\/p>\n
Moustafa Abualneel, who was named to the all-tournament team, led the way offensively, finishing with 13 points in 14 minutes. Donovan Woods chipped in nine points. Jayden Parker contributed eight points in the winning effort. Alexander Brewington, who was also named to the all-tournament team, added two points.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlaying Plano is always a great opportunity for us,\u201d Wester said. \u201cThere is no need for motivational talks before we play a team in the city. Plano is a really good team. They will make a deep run in the playoffs. It was encouraging to see that we could compete with a team of that caliber.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plano East shot the ball well at a 50.9% clip in its previous game, a 69-55 win over Wylie. The Panthers jumped out to a 42-28 halftime lead following a 26-point explosion in the second quarter before surviving a third-quarter surge by the Pirates to earn a victory.<\/p>\n
Brewington netted 12 points to pace a balanced scoring attack for Plano East, followed by 11 each from Parker and Keagan Ho and 10 from RJ Robinson.<\/p>\n
Plano East used another strong second quarter to outlast North Garland 63-52 in the team\u2019s second game of the tournament. The Panthers outscored the Raiders 20-10 in the second quarter after the two teams settled for a 13-13 tie at the end of the first quarter.<\/p>\n
Brewington (16 points) and Abualneel (14) combined for 30 points, while Dylan Glass added 10 points in the victory.<\/p>\n
To commence the tournament, it was all Plano East in a 64-48 win over Frisco. The Panthers built a 35-12 halftime lead before cruising to the win.<\/p>\n
Abualneel posted a double-double with 17 points and 12 rebounds. Brewington chipped in 16 points. Robinson added nine points in the victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plano East sophomore Alexander Brewington, pictured in previous action, was named to the all-tournament team at the 13th\u00a0Annual…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":{"0":"post-80961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-plano","8":"tag-plano","9":"tag-plano-headlines","10":"tag-plano-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}