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“Passion is more important than the plan.”
It’s a seven word adage with just 10 syllables that was shared with H.L. Bourgeois boys basketball coach Andrew Caillouet by his friend and Southeastern Louisiana University assistant coach Larry Cordaro.
When Caillouet returned and brought the words home to his team, the Braves were 0-1 in district play, fresh off a loss to Assumption.
They took their coach’s words to heart.
They haven’t lost since and are in the fast lane to becoming the Bayou District champions.
“The bottom line is since the Assumption game, we’ve played with passion,” Caillouet said. “And the quote just makes sense. When you play helter skelter like we do, if you don’t play with that edge, then you’re just not going to be very good.”
The road to the top of the district has had plenty of potholes along the way for the Braves who finished with just six wins in the 2009-10 season.
But last year the Braves had four sophomores in the starting lineup.
This year, they are a group of mostly juniors – a one-year gap that has “meant the world” to the H.L. Bourgeois coaches and players, who said all it took was one year of losing to realize they wanted more for themselves.
“The kids from last year and two years ago just kind of decided that they were tired of having their heads handed to them,” Caillouet said. “And they are just a so much more mature group than they’ve been in years past.”
One of the team’s leaders, forward Terrence Jones added to his coach’s thoughts and said from the beginning of the season the Braves set out to fix all of the wrongs that accumulated last season.
“Everybody just said at the beginning of the year that they were going to play harder and put their full effort into it,” Jones said. “And to not give up until the end of the game when the clock is at zero.”
Guard Tevin Jackson agreed and said with such a young team last year, the Braves’ biggest opponent wasn’t necessarily anyone else, but rather themselves and their own built-in inexperience and immaturity.
“Last year when we got down, everybody put their heads down and let things get out of control,” Jackson said. “But this year, it’s not like that. We just got together at the beginning of the season and told ourselves that when things get tough, we’d stick together, you know? And just fight until the end.”
In a huge game against South Lafourche last Tuesday in Gray, the Braves proved just that.
With first place in the district hanging in the balance, the hungry Tarpons jumped out to a 12-7 lead at the end of the first quarter.
The Braves regrouped and fired back, taking a 28-24 halftime lead before carrying momentum into the second half en route to a comfortable 64-48 win.
“There have been a lot of situations like that this year where last year we might not have made it work,” Jones said. “But our coach always tells us to just keep our heads up and to never stop playing hard.”
“We always talk about if we play as hard as we can, we can play with anybody,” Caillouet added. “And if we don’t, anybody can play with us.”
If recent rankings are an accurate source, Caillouet is right and the Braves just might be able to play with everyone.
In the latest LHSAA state power rankings, H.L. Bourgeois ranked as the No. 5 team in the state in Class 5A.
Along the way they’ve earned that ranking by compiling a 22-4 record that has included wins against several of the top teams in the state, including Westgate, who is currently No. 6 in Class 5A.
The playoffs are nothing new to Caillouet who led the Braves to the State Finals in 2008.
And for his team’s chances this year?
The coach is confident – that is, if the team continues to believe that passion is more important than the plan, of course.
“I feel as confident going into the playoffs this year as I did three years ago when we made it to the finals,” Caillouet said. “But the bottom line is there’s just no guarantee. You can get there and you can be one-and-done. The year we made the run, we won by seven or eight points in the first round, won by one, won by two, then won by 12, so you’re going to play quality teams just like you or better in the playoffs, so there’s obviously no guarantees, which goes back to what we tell the kids – when you play with that passion and play smart and do the right things, you can play with anybody. I truly believe that to the bottom of my soul.”
H.L. Bourgeois guard Terrence Jones rises up over South Lafourche defender Keagan Polkey during last Tuesday’s game. Jones has been a driving force behind the Braves’ turnaround to a potential district championship squad. CASEY GISCLAIR
