Last school year, the Clague men’s basketball A-Team didn’t win a game, with most Cougars remembering the season as one where there was lots of room for improvement. On Feb. 10, 2026, The Clague men’s basketball team started their bounce back season with a win against Tappan. It was a dominant performance that had the Cougars in control for almost the entire game.
The A-Team started off the game slow but were able to get some fast break points to even the score at 8-8 by the end of the first quarter. All eight points scored in the first quarter by Clague were by seventh graders Shane Moore and Taym Shamma, starting off their first game in a Clague basketball jersey strong.
The Cougars were able to pull away a bit in the second quarter, but the push to extend the lead didn’t come without struggles. Clague was still able to dominate in transition, scoring the majority of their second quarter points from fast breaks and not letting Tappan do the same to them. By this point in the game, it had become clear that the Clague defense was dominating Tappan by only letting up one score the entire quarter. The scoring was much more plentiful and spread out for the Cougars, who had five players get on the board with points in the second. At halftime, the score was 22-10, with Clague’s leading scorer being Shane Moore with 14 points. Even though the A-Team had an impressive quarter, there were areas to improve in on the offensive side. A-Team had a few missed opportunities in the second, with multiple missed layups and turnovers.
Any hope Tappan had of creating a comeback in the third quarter was crushed by another dominant quarter on both sides of the ball for the Cougars. Clague had the height advantage over the Trojans all game, but it really showed in the third with the Cougars able to dominate in the paint in terms of scoring and getting rebounds. Tappan had yet another quarter with virtually no offense, only scoring three points, but it was the complete opposite for the Clague A-Team. With a 1:45 left in the quarter, Shane Moore was able to finish a contested layup to put the Cougars up 20. Moore had eight points in the third quarter, and finished the game with 22 points. The Cougars ended the quarter up 37-13, with additional scoring coming from eighth grader Zach Azar and seventh grader Taym Shamma.
The fourth quarter was slightly less exciting for the Cougars only because they had already sealed the win. They eventually did let up on defense, though not in a very noticeable way, with Tappan scoring six in the final quarter. The Cougars A-Team didn’t have a very strong quarter on offense, with eighth grader Milo Tseng knocking down a free throw for his only point of the game, and Jacob Haygood scoring 4 in the fourth and finishing the game with six. The final score was 42-19.
While there was and always will be areas for improvement, the Clague A-Team had a solid first performance against Tappan and has a chance to do very well against other competition in Ann Arbor.
