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GREENSBORO — 7-10 is the last thing a bowler wants to hear, and it doesn’t sound much better to a basketball coach if it’s referring to his team’s record.

That’s the mark for Craig Shoemaker’s Ragsdale team after 76-65 loss to Forsyth Country Day on Monday in the MLK Day N.C. Scholastic Classic. Look closer and you’ll see plenty of promise that the Tigers’ season won’t be an open frame.

Ragsdale has a winning record since opening with four straight losses, and the Tigers are 4-1 and atop the Piedmont Triad 4-A standings after almost one rotation through the conference schedule.

The slow start was to be expected after the Tigers graduated Wally Jones and Josh White and lost Jay Canty’s 20 points per game to Oak Ridge Military Academy.

The Tigers’ leading returning scorer, forward Tyquan Roberts, is just now rounding into shape after a knee injury kept him out several weeks. The 6-foot-4 junior is nearly averaging a double-double despite still playing without a noticeable portion of his explosiveness. Shoemaker said he’d like to move him to the wing more once that power returns.

NOWHERE TO RUN: Wilson Greenfield’s Logan Sneed had the ball and an open floor ahead of him, though it was the thing breathing down his neck he felt more. Technically this would be called a fast break, but you’d be trying to move fast too if you had a 6-foot-8 shot-blocking machine chasing you down like a Doberman.

Sneed went up for a layup and Oak Ridge Military’s Jacob Lawson, formerly of Northern Guilford, flicked the shot away like a wayward fly. Greenfield corralled the rebound and put up another gimme shot, which was met with a swat by Canty.

This is the problem facing a team with five players taller than 6-foot-5, including N.C. State-bound 7-footer Joseph Uchebo. Lawson, who led the state in blocks last season with more than four per game for Northern Guilford, is averaging seven a game this season at Oak Ridge to go along with 12 points and 11 rebounds. He’s one of a half dozen Division I prospects on his team and no fewer than a dozen who played at the Coliseum on Monday.

Contact Tom Keller at 373-7034 or tom.keller@news-record.com