Other teams underestimate this young Ocean Springs basketball duo. ‘They’re competitors.’
The buzzer sounded Tuesday night on yet another Ocean Springs win. The Greyhounds (17-2) sent a talented Pascagoula team packing to run their win streak to 16 games and remain one of the hottest teams on the Mississippi Coast.
With still five regular season games left to play, Ocean Springs has nearly tripled its win total from a year ago when the Greyhounds finished just 6-19.
The sharp turnaround has a surprising driving force behind it. Where some teams improve with age and experience, head coach Matt Noblitt has found a new energetic force behind two of the best underclassmen in the region.
Sophomore point guard Elijah Isom and freshman wing Maddox Noblitt have taken hold of the reigns and helped propel the Greyhounds to a 3-0 start to Region 7-6A play.
It was slow going at first with the team hobbling to a 1-2 start to the year. The youth showed in a blowout loss to Hancock and a nine-point defeat at the hands of Gautier.
“We knew they were talented, they both played a lot of basketball so we knew that the talent was there,” Matt Noblitt told the Sun Herald. “With young kids, when are they going to grow up? It took them about the first two weeks of the season, after that they kind of hit the ground running and adjusted to the physicality of it.”
Isom used a pair of games against Pass Christian in November to get his feet wet with 27 and 35-point outbursts against the Pirates.
Maddox Noblitt, Coach Matt Noblitt’s nephew, dropped 21 in his first career varsity game against Long Beach and followed that performance up a couple of weeks later with a 15-point, 10-rebound double-double against Pass Christian.
“They’re competitors, both of them are super competitive,” Coach Noblitt said. “They don’t shy away from a challenge or from a fight. They love to compete.”
Both credit the more experienced players in front of them for helping them adjust to the faster varsity game.
“We got a lot of guys that show a lot of leadership and set a good example of what varsity basketball is,” Isom said. “They’ve kind of showed us how this goes every day at practice.”
The physicality of the game was different for Maddox, who skipped the usual prerequisite of the junior varsity level.
“I was playing eighth grade last year so when I came up here (my teammates) were kind of like, ‘It’s way more physical,’” Maddox said. “In practice, we go hard every day. They made me more physical and made me tougher.”
The youth itself the two bring to the court may be a contributing factor to the Greyhounds’ success. As underclassmen, Isom believes they often catch opponents off guard.
“I feel like (the other team) kind of underestimates us and then they get in the game and realize, ‘Oh, these guys can actually play,’” Isom said.
The two have provided a refreshing boost in depth and scoring to the team and act as a compliment to star senior guard Avery Carter who is averaging just over 13 points and six rebounds a contest.
Together the trio is producing right at 40 points per game, or just over 65% of the entire team’s nightly scoring output.
“They all kind of compliment each other,” Matt Noblitt said. “Avery is more of a slasher and a jumper and those things. I tell Avery, as long he stays active the ball is going to find him.”
Both Isom and Maddox are scoring right around 13 points per game, with Isom adding four assits per contest. The two are creating chemistry on the floor early in their careers with a lot of basketball still out in front of the pair.
Isom is the ball-handler who slashes and sucks in defenders while the younger Maddox is the spot-up shooter who makes his opponents pay for slouching off.
“I can shoot pretty well, I guess you could say,” Maddox said. “Since I can shoot, they’re going to have to flash toward my side which gives Elijah more room to drive. And they know Elijah can drive so that opens up gaps for me to shoot.”
The Greyhounds have three more region matchups and a rematch with Hancock in front of them before the postseason begins.
Whatever happens down the final stretch of the season, Coach Noblitt’s program is in good health with the ball in Maddox and Isom’s hands for the foreseeable future.
