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The Gunn boys basketball team used its size advantage to build a lead based on inside scoring, and then knocked down some 3-pointers late to pull away for a 49-39 victory Tuesday over Washington of San Francisco in the championship game of the Steve Cain Classic at Milpitas High.
Gunn finished its early-season non-league schedule at 9-2 and will open SCVAL El Camino Division play Jan. 4 at Lynbrook.
“I feel like this is a pretty special year,” said Rogan Gibbons, who had 17 points and nine rebounds Tuesday and was named the tournament MVP. “We’re off to a good start. There’s still league to come and we want to go to CCS. So we need to keep working, keep building.”
Washington (6-8) led 6-2 when Gunn coach Brandynn Williams called a timeout. The Titans responded to what he had to say and went on a 9-1 run to end the quarter with Gibbons scoring seven of those points and Jack Hakeman, who finished with nine points and was named to the all-tournament team, scoring the other two.
Gunn led 23-14 at halftime and put the game away with a 19-point third quarter on 8-of-13 shooting. The Titans did a nice job of spreading the floor and hitting cutters for high-percentage shots as Gibbons, Sam Mulkey and Allen Rankin — all in the 6-3 to 6-5 range — pretty much had their way inside.
“A lot of our offense is built on backdoor cutting,” Gibbons said. “That helped us a lot tonight. We’ve got good depth with our height and I thought we used that to our advantage.”
The inside offense opened up looks from the perimeter and Gunn made six 3-pointers, two by point guard Ethan Cheng, two by Rankin and one each from Hakeman and Max Luo. Rankin also pulled down nine rebounds
“Confidence,” Williams said. “We’ve been shooting extra in practice. We’ve had some early-morning shootarounds.”
Gunn was 21 of 55 shooting (39%) for the game while Washington was 14 of 45 (31%).
“Our bigs made them work on their finishes,” Williams said.
