By John Alvarado

After taking six days off following its victory over Sandra Day O’Connor High School, the Brophy College boys basketball team came home to its gym in Phoenix to finish off the regular season with a 56-37 loss against a good Basha team.

Brophy coach Matt Hooten said prior to the game that this was the first time in a while that he had his entire team healthy. The first quarter of the matchup between Brophy and Basha was a low scoring affair, as Basha finished the quarter with an 8-6 lead.

Foul trouble and Basha’s defense contributed to the lack of points in the first quarter, Hooten said. The most notable Brophy player who got into foul trouble was center Sean Dunn.

He was benched after receiving two fouls with less than two minutes and replaced by sophomore forward Jaxson Baker.

Then, in the second quarter, Basha started to pull away thanks to the shooting of senior Nick Brewer. Brewer came off the bench to score 14 points, including three 3-pointers.

Basha head coach Mike Grothaus said that he liked the performance of Brewer and Brophy. Hooten said Basha’s wide open shots came when his team was in transition, something his his defense needs to fix before the playoffs.

Those errors contributed to Basha taking a lead, 25-18, it never relinquished. Hooten said that this was the first game his team spent a significant amount of time in a zone defense.

“I think there were things that went really well with that (zone defense), some things that we’re going to look at on film and continue to improve with,” Hooten said. “That’s something that might be a tool for us going into the playoffs.”

Brophy junior forward Matthew Kempton said that he was impressed with his team’s defensive intensity, but it gave up a lot of second chance opportunities. Captain and senior guard Bo Brunkhorst, who played his final home game at Brophy, said that his team could improve on turning the ball over less and raise its intensity level another notch.

“There were some plays that we got out hustled as a team,” Brunkhorst said. “They had more heart, more desire to get the ball.”

Thursday’s game was the end of the regular season for Brophy and Basha. The next time both teams will take the court will be during the Division I playoffs.

John Alvarado is a sports journalism student at Arizona State University. One of his assignments is to cover Brophy.