The Bangor Christian boys basketball team ended its regular season on Monday night with another win to head into the high school tournament with a 16-2 record.
All of those wins didn’t happen by accident.
Head coach Kevin Reed, a former player at the University of Maine, is laser-focused on preparation. And he leans on a quote from martial arts legend Bruce Lee both on and off the court.
“I live by a motto. My motto is a Bruce Lee quote. It’s gonna sound corny, but maybe you get it,” Reed started to explain on Monday night.
The Bangor Christian boys had just taken care of Jonesport-Beals 75-35 at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor.
“I tell my guys, Bruce Lee says, ‘I don’t fear the man who practiced 10,000 kicks once. I fear the man who practiced one kick 10,000 times,” Reed said. “And so, whatever we do in practice, it’s kind of redundant, but it’s about repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition. It’s one kick 10,000 times so that no matter what’s thrown at us, we feel overprepared and that we’re going to be able to execute at a high level both offensively and defensively.”
Even though the Patriots jumped out to a 20-2 lead after the first quarter, Reed wasn’t always satisfied with his team’s discipline.
“So there was a point in time where I put some subs in and I wasn’t impressed with the way the game was going,” the Bangor Christian coach said. “And no matter what the score was, I want our guys to continue to practice good habits, and be disciplined on both ends of the floor. And so no matter what the score is, I feel like I’m always still coaching and I’m going to hold my guys accountable for where they should be, what they should be doing, and the way that they should be playing.”
Few teams have been playing as well as Bangor Christian this season. The Patriots have lost only twice during the regular season in Class D North, both to divisional leader Machias.
Junior guard Rajon Reed, the coach’s son, has helped lead the Patriots all season. And that was once again the case Monday night. The junior led the Patriots with 17 points, and provided plenty of highlight reel material that included an emphatic put-back dunk after a teammate had just barely missed around the rim.
James Brasted led all scorers with 23 points for Jonesport-Beals. Brasted went on an impressive 10-point tear in the third quarter, but his Class S team was never able to catch up to a dominant Bangor Christian attack.
Drake Nash added 12 points for the Patriots, Elliott Straubel had 11 and Jesse Booker had 10.
Their coach can’t believe the regular season is already over, and says the key for his team heading into the postseason tournament will be taking the game one possession at a time. He was going to give his players a break from practice on Tuesday before gearing up for the playoffs.
“I’ll get the guys off tomorrow and I’m expecting that when we get together Thursday, we’re gonna be better Thursday than we were today,” Reed said. “And we’ll be better Friday than we were Thursday, and just getting a little bit better each and every day.”
The first day of Class D North tournament action will be Saturday, Feb. 14.
“Hopefully we peak at the right time,” Reed said.
