Ten Best: Alcoa-Knox Webb

<p>Alcoa slipped into Webb's gym Tuesday evening and left dinged up with a 61-56 loss.   Knoxville Webb School improved to 11-5 on the season and Alcoa fell to 10-5.  </p> <p>Webb owned the first half, but the tornadic Alcoa attack arrived ferocious and late in the opening stanza.  With the game tied at 45 all early in the fourth quarter the game slowed down as possessions grew in importance.  An offensive rebound careened into David Sanger's hands and he made his first triple of the night.  Read about the key players below.</p> <p><span style="font-family: 'arial black', sans-serif;">Knox Webb Starters:</span></p> <p>Luke Burnett <br /> Uriah Powers (13p)<br /> Jaylon Green <br /> David Sanger (5p)<br /> Tariq Daughton (7p)</p> <p><span style="font-family: 'arial black', sans-serif;">Alcoa Starters:</span></p> <p>Isaiah Cox (9p)<br /> Camden Burden (5p)<br /> T.J. Martin (4p)<br /> Tai Cates (21p)<br /> Nick Roberts (10p)</p> <p>Here are the top 10 performers from the matchup.</p> <p><strong>MVP: Uriah Powers (Knox Webb)</strong></p> <p><strong>Uriah Powers</strong> shot very well in this tight affair.  Powers' best play occurred late in the hotly contested game; Uriah began a fastbreak, sprinted down the center of the court and found <strong>Luke Burnett</strong> on the wing.  Burnett buried just his second three pointer of the evening.  It was a huge shot for Burnett and for the Spartans, who opened up the game to 56-47 at a pivotal juncture.</p> <p><strong>Best offensive performance: Tai Cates (Alcoa)</strong></p> <p>Hardly fast.  Freshman <strong>Tai Cates</strong> bounded into the lane and finished softly over and over and over.  Knoxville Webb School played poorly defensively much of the game.  Tai Cates was the man who ripped apart the defense and made the best of the situation.  Cates is a power guard with wonderfully delicate touch in deep. Cates finished with 21 points.</p> <p><strong>Best defensive performance: Isaiah Cox (Alcoa)</strong></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Best passer: David Sanger (Knox Webb)</strong></p> <p>Sanger did not have his shooting touch in the first 20 minutes.  Regardless, the defenders goofily sprinted at Sanger and revealed defensive gaps that David wisely exploited.  Sanger sees the floor remarkably well.  His eagerness to pass opens up the floor and allows multiple players off the ball to become threats before the defense reacts.  Sanger's passing really provides the swift ball movement that Webb needs to be dangerous offensively.  They don't have the exceptional dribblers and the crisp passes help tremendously. </p> <p><strong>Best catch and shoot guy: Uriah Powers (Knox Webb)</strong></p> <p>Uriah Powers hit three of his first four three-pointers, a stunning development for this reporter.  Powers spent the last year morphing from a power forward to a two-guard and the last step in that development is surely to be outside shooting.  Powers is not a consistently deadly shooter just yet, but he opened this game with excellent marksmanship. </p> <p><strong>Best under-the-radar performance: Nick Roberts (Alcoa)</strong></p> <p>Dangerous with severely limited touches.  Roberts made almost every shot he took and barely even possessed the basketball.  His comfort in this role really provided Alcoa with a stabilizing influence among a flurry of ill-advised shots.  </p> <p><strong>Best worker: Nate Marsh (Alcoa)</strong></p> <p>Feisty.  Incredibly high work rate.  Marsh delivered an intensity that Alcoa was lacking before his insertion midway in the first quarter. </p> <p><strong>Biggest First Half Moment:</strong></p> <p>Knox Webb finished the opening half in a sputter. Despite leading, dominating even for most of the half, Webb allowed a frenetic yet efficient Alcoa run to close.  Knoxville Webb methodically dismantled the Tornado defense for 14 minutes and seemingly ran out of steam in the final two minutes. Worse for Webb was the defense late in the half.  Tai Cates simply bounded into the paint and finished soft floaters largely unchallenged.  The half closed 30-26 Knoxville Webb School after a margin as large as 11 points crumbled.  Their momentum enabled or facilitated an early 8-4 second half start favoring Alcoa. </p> <p><strong>Best effort: Tai Cates (Alcoa)</strong></p> <p>Both Diabate and Thioune are Division I prospects. Diabate, a 2021 big man is a full length and that is evident by his 6'10" frame. He's skinny, but once he matures and adds muscle, he'll be dangerous. Thioune has already come together a bit. Offered prior to the game by Utah, he showed up on both ends. The two bigs each had six points.</p> <p><strong>Best freshman: Lukas Walls (Knox Webb)</strong></p> <p>Great posture.  Competent with the basketball in tight spaces.  Walls has a promising future with the Spartans.</p> <p>It doesn't get any easier for Alcoa as they travel to Fulton High Friday night.</p> <p><em>Follow @AndrewForce8.</em></p>