GRANITE CITY - Granite City head boys Coach Gerald Moore said he is excited about the possibility of playing Collinsville again despite the loss at Granite City on Tuesday night, Dec. 16, 2025.
There is a chance the two teams might meet again in the Collinsville Prairie Farms Holiday Classic next week, and if so, it could be another good game. Still, it was a very good learning experience for the Warriors.
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Coach Moore said, "We just have to continue to grow from our mistakes. It's a good experience for us moving forward. We just have to continue to get better every day, and continue to work on fundamentals, taking care of the ball, rebounding, and defending.
"Our motto is defense, and today, I feel like we didn't play our best defensively, because we allowed Wilkinson to get open, and he just had a great night on us. You can't do that on a great player; you've got to stay attached and make him work for what he got. And I just felt like all night, he got what he wanted. You're not going to win like that."
Granite City plays three games in a row next, starting with a tilt at McCluer High in Ferguson, Mo., on Thursday, a home game against KIPP Academy of St. Louis on Friday, and a date against Pinckneyville in the SWIC Shootout on Saturday in Belleville before entering a game against Lincoln in the first round of the Collinsville Holiday Classic next week. It's a stretch Moore is looking ahead to.
"(It's) two games we look forward to playing," Moore said about the games against McCluer and KIPP, "and hopefully, we can come out on the winning end. On Saturday, we're playing in a shootout at SWIC. We play Pinckneyville, which is another formidable opponent. We have to be ready for that."
The game against Lincoln will also be a difficult game in the opening round of the Collinsville tournament, Coach Moore said.
"It doesn't get any easier for us," Moore said. "We just got to be ready, we've got to make sure the kids are confident, prepared, and rested, so we can put on a good show. Collinsville played well, coach (Matthews), he's young, I enjoyed going against him tonight.
"I think he's going to do a really good job at Collinsville. Hopefully, they give him some time, and I'm happy to see they got a good guy to replace coach (Darin) Lee."
