Yoe basketball still alive amid tie-breaker confusion

When Cameron fans emptied Yoe Gym after Tuesday night’s 60-48 loss to the Jarrell Cougars, everyone thought it would be the last time a Yoemen basketball game would be played this season.

Despite losing to Academy (55-52) on Friday, Cameron entered Tuesday’s action with a one game lead over Lexington, Hearne and Academy for the third spot in the district.

The word going around the gym was that if the Yoemen lost to Jarrell, Academy beat Rockdale, and Lexington defeated Hearne, then Cameron would be the odd man out of the playoff tiebreaker.

All of those things did indeed happen, and for a good while everyone thought that the season was actually over.  However, after a more careful inspection of the tie-breaker rules, the scenario had changed.  

After Friday’s action, Jarrell and Franklin had locked down the number one and two seeds in the district.  Academy, Cameron and Lexington were all tied for third at 7-7.  The rules state that the team with the best head-to-head record would be the number three seed.  That would be Lexington since they had defeated Cameron twice and split with Academy.

Since Academy and Cameron were the other two teams remaining, it went back to head-to-head and both teams split their two district contests.  This means that a tie-breaker game between the two will have to be played to determine the final playoff spot out of 20-3A.

Since Lexington had 3 wins, Academy 2 wins and Cameron had 1 win in the three-way scenario, it was initially thought that the Yoemen would be left out due to having the fewest amount of wins in those games.  That was not the case. 

The date and time for the tie-breaker game had not been decided before Wednesday’s press deadline.  An update will be posted on the Yoemen Sports Network Facebook page. 

In Cameron’s loss to Academy, Cameron led 38-36 at the end of three, but could not hold off a late surge.  The Bees hit 9 three-point shots, including Garrett Worden’s trey with just 10 seconds left in what was the game-winning shot.  Cameron’s Danny Perez (12 points) and Kevondre Wesley (11 points) both finished in double figures.

In the most recent loss to Jarrell, Cameron led 12-10 after one period and only trailed by three at the half, but could not keep pace offensively in the second half and fell, 60-48.  Wesley (19 points) and Perez (10 points) were once again the leading scorers.  Booze also had 8 points.