CLASS 5A AREA TOURNAMENT
Memorial Chargers (24-3) vs. Edison Eagles (16-11)
TIME: 6:00 PM 
LOCATION: Jenks High School
BROADCAST: T-Town Sports (Grant Merrill, Dean Green)

TULSA – Bobby Allison is no stranger to the postseason.

Between a his stints as an assistant coach at Memorial High School early in his career, and now celebrating well over a decade as head coach of his alma mater, Allison has seen at least six championship gold balls brought back to the school from Oklahoma City. As he gets ready for area tournament action that starts tonight in Jenks, he admits that we are heading into his favorite time of the year.

“It’s the best time of the year for basketball fans, basketball players and a basketball coach,” Allison said on Wednesday. “Also its kind of the busiest time and getting all the ducks in a row and kind of just maintaining maintenance to your program and your team and making sure everybody is pulling on the same rope for what will be just nothing but competitive basketball games the rest of the season.”

As far as the competitive basketball goes, Allison and his Chargers have no easy task tonight at the Class 5A Area Tournament in Jenks. They take on an Edison Eagles team that is on an eight game hot streak, with their last loss coming to Memorial in a 59-47 decision on January 28th. That was the third time the Chargers have beaten Edison this year.

So how hard would it be to beat them a fourth time?

“There’s definitely that laying out there as far as to whether can you beat them four times. But like I told the kids after we found out we were playing them after we beat Shawnee, we don’t have to beat them four times on Thursday. That would be a tall, tall task if you got if they had to beat us once and we had to beat them four times in some scenario,” Allison said. “Edison hadn’t lost since they played us last time. So that’s who we’re playing. We’re, you know, we’re not even gonna make it about the rivalry. We’re playing the hottest team in 5A, that has a 2 and 0 playoff record and they’ve done an incredible job.” 

Allison says keys to beating the Eagles tonight include remembering the basics.

“We write three phases on the board for every game that you must do—what you must do offensively. You got to value the basketball, you got to, you know, share it. We’ve had, I think, seven or eight leading scorers this year in games. So who cares who’s going to do it? Somebody’s going to be our leading scorer. We need to not care who it is. Read the defense—what are they giving us? Make the extra pass, be selfless. But when you shoot it, shoot it for the team. You ain’t shooting for you anymore,” Allison said. “And so valuing the ball defensively and offensively, we got to control the boards. We’ll have a size advantage, and we need to be bigger than them—not taller. We need to play big, play tough, move our feet on defense. They got some great shooters, three or four guys who are capable of hitting four threes in a quarter. So we can’t give up horse shots, and we got to communicate, talk, and echo on defense, whatever we’re in.”

As for the Eagles, they’ll bring plenty for Memorial to contend with when they hit the floor.

“And so valuing the ball, defensively and offensively, we got to control the borders, we’ll have a size advantage. And we need to be bigger than them, not taller. We need to play big, play tough, move our feet on defense. They got some great, they got three or four guys that are capable of hitting four threes in a quarter. So we can’t give up horse shots and we got to communicate and talk and echo on defense, whatever we’re in,” Allison predicted. “And then the last thing we write on the board, offense, defense, and then we talk about teammate and tangibles and we got it, we can’t be scared of the moment. We got to handle every adversity. We got to accept a call that might not go our way. We almost got to smile through that because if there’s going to be a lot of emotion, a lot of people are going to be there want to want to see a great game. And as a teammate, one through 15, you gotta be able to look your guy in the eye and know that, you know, they’re there for you and he’s in all aspects, handling, handling every moment. It’s real, the playoffs more than anything, especially high school basketball, cause it’s so right there. You’re not hiding under a helmet. People are going to see everything you’re about as a competitor for a 32 plus minutes, so let’s trust our training and go to work.”

The winner of the Edison/Memorial matchup will automatically advance to the state tournament. The loser will play the winner of the Collinsville/Will Rogers game which will be played immediately afterwards on the floor of Jenks High School.