EDWARDSVILLE - O'Fallon's boys basketball team dropped a Southwestern Conference title to Edwardsville 57-46 on Tuesday night, Jan. 6, 2026. Still, head coach Brian Muniz remains optimistic for a solid finish for the Panthers in 2026.
O’Fallon goes to 5-12 and will play at Alton on Friday night, before hosting Belleville East next Tuesday and Belleville West on Jan. 16, all games starting at 7:30 p.m.
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The Panthers did have a good rally in the final quarter against Edwardsville, cutting the lead to five in the final minutes, but the Tigers were able to come up with the answers when they needed them.
“We didn’t come out, and we didn’t hit many shots early, and struggled,” Muniz said. “It was a grind in the first half, but we were only down 12 and we only scored 10 in the first half, it’s tough to come back from. In the third quarter, we tried to get it down a little bit, but they hit a couple of shots, and we just could not back. In the fourth, we got to within four or five, then, they got a bucket, then we took a bad shot, and they hit a couple of shots, and we big-time threes at crucial moments.”
It has been a bit of a difficult season for the Panthers thus far, but the effort has certainly been there. Coach Muniz feels that his club needs to play a complete game in order to improve its record.
“We’re working to get better,” Muniz said. “We’re in every game, we just have to find a way to play well enough for 32 minutes. Right now, we keep playing well for 16 minutes, not 32. We need to play two halves, and if we play two halves together, I think we’ll have a good chance to beat some teams.”
Akoro and Jayden Dancy played well, among other O’Fallon players, but as things turned out, Edwardsville had the answers in the end to take the win.
“We just didn’t have enough guys play well enough,” Muniz said, “and when they’re playing zone like that, you just hope you’re hitting some shots, and we did not. And hopefully, next time we play them, we’ll be better prepared.”
Although the Panthers lost, Muniz knows there’s still plenty of basketball left, and his club will be ready once the IHSA playoffs get started in late February.
“Absolutely,” Muniz said. “We believe we can still win a regional and make a run. We believe we can do that, and we just have to keep striving to get better every game.”
