Central basketball teams playing Warner at home of OKC Thunder, then seeing them play Utah Jazz

Monday night will be a big night for the Central High School basketball teams.

First off, they will meet the Warner teams at 2 and 3:30 p.m. Monday at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City, the home of the OKC Thunder.

Both Central coaches said everyone is excited for this opportunity.

“The kids are thrilled,” Central boys coach Caleb Cawhorn said. “An opportunity like this, you don’t get to do this every year, so we’re really excited. The kids are pumped about it. We are excited about next week in Oklahoma City.”

“It’s pretty exciting for them,” Central girls coach Shane Brown said. “When they first found out in early October, they were pretty excited. It’s a great venue for high school kids to play in. Plus, we’re playing one of the top teams in Class 2A, so that even adds to it. We’re going to be playing a really tough game up there. We’re looking forward to this.”

Secondly, after their games, Central’s team and fans then will get to watch the Thunder’s home game against the Utah Jazz, which will tip off at 7 p.m. at Paycom Center.

“When they purchase a ticket to come watch us, they get one for the Thunder game as well,” Cawhorn said.

“It’s 7 p.m that night, so what we’ll do is have the girls game and the boys game, we’ll take them to eat somewhere, then we’ll come back for the Thunder and the Jazz.”

However, while it will be a fun experience for the Central squads, this essentially is a business trip.

“It’s is different,” Cawhorn said. “It is out of the norm. You’re still traveling and trying to win a ball game. That will be key. We want them to be excited and enjoy the experience. At the end of the day, we are trying to win a basketball game.”

“We’re going to preach it’s a tough game, and we’ll have fun afterwards,” Brown said. “For going up there, we’re going to take that opportunity, and we hope we don’t let it slip through our fingers because that would be a big win for us if we can pull that off. Warner is a top-five team in the state in Class 2A. That’s going to be a really tough game for us.”

• • •

This is the first of two back-to-back weeks of high school basketball tournaments.

This week, the Central teams are playing in the Nadine Carpenter Classic at Leflore, and the Webbers Falls squads are participating in the Wilson Tiger Classic at Wilson High School north of Henryetta.

There will be three three-day tournaments featuring our teams beginning Thursday and ending Saturday. Sallisaw’s teams will be in the First United Bank Tournament in Shawnee, the Muldrow squads will be in the Sequoyah-Tahlequah Tournament and the Gans hoopsters will play in the first annual Maud 8-Man Invitational.

Next week, there will be the inaugural Gore Tournament, which will take place Dec. 14-16 at Gore Event Center, which will feature the host Gore teams as well as Vian’s, while the Roland squads will be at Talihina’s Choctaw Nation Invitation Tournament the same three days.

• • •

We had some 20-plus point performances last week.

In fact, Roland’s Davohn Hall had two of them, a game-high 29 points in the season-opening 66-60 overtime win over Inola on Nov. 28, then following that up with a game-high 24 points in the NOAA Conference-opening 55-52 road win over Stilwell.

Webbers Falls Lady Warrior Teralynn Colston had 26 points in her team’s 53-29 road win over Braggs on Friday night.

Despite falling to Riverside Conference rival McCurtain on Friday night, Gore Pirate Tate Brooksher had a 20-point performance.

• • •

No one reported to me if we had any male or female player who recorded a double-double, or even a triple-double, during last week’s first basketball games of the season.

If you coaches will make me aware of any such performances by your players, I’ll give them special recognition as well as the 20-plus individual scorers each week.

David Seeley is sports editor for Your TIMES. He can be reached by telephone at (918) 775-4433, Ext. 139 or by email at davids@cookson.news.