Application period ends today for vacant Ellender football position
January 5, 2016
Dove looking ahead to improving Terrebonne’s many ongoing projects
January 6, 2016
The H.L. Bourgeois boys’ basketball team isn’t the biggest team in Louisiana, nor the fastest or most athletic.
But Braves coach Andrew Caillouet thinks that his team has an abundance of both effort and heart. That, the veteran coach believes, is enough to overcome physical liabilities the team may have and lead them into the playoffs.
The Braves are 13-4 at press-time, a mark good enough to rank the team in the top-half of the power rankings in Class 5A. The record and ranking are even more impressive when one considers that H.L. Bourgeois has played some of the top teams in Louisiana throughout non-district play.
The Braves have beaten Natchitoches Central, Comeaux, Destrehan and E.D. White so far this season – all teams with records well below .500 at press-time.
Caillouet said the team’s recipe for success is simple: hard work, dedication to the system and a constant willingness to play with non-stop effort for 32 minutes each night.
“Our kids bring it,” Caillouet said. “I give the kids a lot of credit. We play hard. We definitely use our effort to spark a lot of what we do. We don’t have great size, unlike in years past. So we overcome that with effort and trying to be scrappy and hard-nosed when we can in each game. The kids buy into that.”
Having an abundance of talented players helps, too.
The Braves may not have elite size, but they do have an abundance of high-quality rotation players who can play both inside and out.
Arguably the team’s leader is junior forward Chance Gasery – a young man who is arguably one of the top players in the Houma-Thibodaux area.
Gasery stands 6-feet, 2-inches – one of the tallest players on the Braves roster. But he’s a solid 200 pounds and can play both inside and out.
Caillouet said he is one of the cogs that makes the team tick.
“He’s a terrific player for us,” Caillouet said. “He can play and defend just about all five positions. He can push the ball down the floor, and he plays hard. I think Chance is a guy who really personifies a lot of the things we’re trying to do on the floor. His versatility helps us out tremendously.”
But while Gasery is among the team’s most consistent scorers, the Braves also have depth, notably names like Anthony Rainey, Rayshawn Mart, Terrell Barrow, I’Savier Allridge, Tevyn Johnson, Divine Martin and Desean Walker, among others.
Caillouet said the Braves have a bit of a “pick your poison” approach, because his team can excel against both man-to-man and zone defenses on given nights.
“We have a good bit of kids who can score and be a big-offense player on a given night,” Caillouet said. “We like that mix. We like knowing that it’s not about one kid. We like knowing it’s about having a group who can all contribute to getting us to the goal.”
The goals so far have been lofty.
In pre-district, the Braves beat six teams with winning records, including big-time statement wins against Comeaux and Natchitoches Central – a team that made it to the Class 5A Finals last year.
But even for as good as the Braves are, Caillouet and his team know that nothing will be easy in the coming weeks.
Caillouet said that District 7-5A is as difficult as any district in Louisiana – a two-round gauntlet that might have as many as six playoff teams before it’s all said and done.
The Braves opened district play on Tuesday night against powerful East St. John at home. No score for the game was available at press-time.
The team will travel on Friday night against Central Lafourche – another in a long line of state powerhouses in the district.
The Trojans are 11-4 on the season and are many people’s picks to reach the Top 28.
Also in the district are tough outs like Terrebonne, Thibodaux and River Parish powers like Destrehan and Hahnville.
Hahnville plays a style that is stealing headlines around Louisiana. They play full-court pressure defense all game and shoot nothing but 3-pointers – sometimes as many as 50 or 60 in a game.
“It won’t be easy,” Caillouet said. “Every, single night in our district is an absolute battle from start to finish. There are no deep breaths or easy games. There are no nights off. It’s a challenge for a team to be consistent enough to play and give a quality effort that many times to have success in our league.” •
