Parks leading Union in competing for lead in GSC

Tylandrius Parks is a senior at Union University who’s among the team leaders in multiple categories.

He leads the team with 20 points per game, second with 7.6 rebounds, second with 43 assists and third in each category with 17 steals and five blocks.

On Saturday, the Bulldogs got a big conference win over Lee University, 61-54. Going into the game, Lee was one of two teams tied for first with a 9-2 conference record, and Union was one of three teams a game back tied for second at 8-3.

The results of this game and others around Gulf South Conference, left the five teams in a five-way tie for first at 9-3 with a sixth team, Valdosta State, one game back at 8-4.

“In this conference, there are a lot of good teams,” Parks said about playing in the GSC. “It don’t matter if you’re playing a team that’s down in the standings or on a losing streak.

“Not just this year, but every year, the No. 1 team might be playing the fourth- or fifth-best team, and you really don’t know if that No. 1 team will get the win because that fourth or fifth team you know is going to be really good too.”

And Parks said that keeps conference play exciting.

“We’ve got to be ready to go every night,” Parks said. “We’re competitive, and we know everybody else is too, so that makes the games matter that much more because of how hard we’re fighting for wins.”

Parks was already accustomed to competition before coming to Union. He’s a 2018 graduate of Middleton High School and helped lead the Tigers to the sectional round of the TSSAA postseason every year.

On this night against Lee, Parks wasn’t the leading scorer. And in fact, with the game being a defensive struggle where neither team was able to get into a real offensive rhythm to score a lot of points, a lot of the Bulldogs’ points were below their season average.

But that also led to what Parks said is more ideal for the team going into the game.

Nguidjol Boe was the leading scorer with 17. Parks and Jeremiah Littlepage each had 13, and Justin Debuck had 12.

“Ideally, we’re going to be scoring like this with a lot of different guys getting buckets and points coming from all over the floor,” Parks said. “And when we score more points like 70 or 80, it does look more like that’s happening.

“But sometimes we need someone to score more points who has a better matchup with the other team’s defense. And sometimes, someone is just hitting their shots, so they need to be the one taking them. And none of us care as long as we’re winning.”

The Bulldogs’ next three games are all on the road. One of them is against West Georgia, one of the other teams tied for first, on Jan. 18.

The Bulldogs’ home games over the next few weeks include Christian Brothers on Jan. 26, West Florida on Feb. 2 and Valdosta State on Feb. 4.

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news