Mountain Pointe's boys basketball team is feeling better after a heaping, helping of tournament basketball the past two weeks.

The Pride posed a 3-3 record in the King of the Bluegrass Invitationall in Louisville, KY just prior to Christmas and last week finished  runner-up in the Boulder Creek Holiday Hoops Fest to Desert Mountain.

That brought out a hungrier Mountain Pointe squad to the 2013 portion of this season's schedule, who responded with a 72-48 thumping of Brophy Prep at Mountain Pointe High School. Brophy is now 14-3 overall and 7-2 in power-ranking games. The loss was the second in as many games as the Broncos dropped the title game of the McClintock Holiday Shootout last week, 59-50, to Highland.

The only two Mountain Pointe holdovers from last year's state playoff team who returned this year were instrumenta on Thursday -- as new coach Aaron Windler expected them to be. Senior guard Khari Holloway and senior forward Tre Campbell combined for 46 points in helping Mountain Pointe (6-6, 3-3 in power-ranking games) avenge a season-opening loss to the Broncos back on Nov. 27.

"When we played the first time it was our first game and they'd had three or four," Windler said. "We'd just gotten Tre out from football. We've been inconsistent mostly, but right now we're starting to get away from that. Khari and Tre are our leaders. I really think after we played in the Kentucky tournament that flipped the switch for them."

Brophy had its way with Mountain Pointe in the first meeting behind 6-foot-9 center Tim Kempton, who led the Broncos to a 52-39 win. Brophy led after one period (12-10) Thursday as the teams went through the feeling-out process the first eight minutes. A three-point play opened the second quarter boosting the lead to 15-10. The rest of the period was pretty much all Mountain Pointe as the Pride outscored Brophy, 25-8, over the next 7 minutes and 50 seconds.

Holloway scored all eight of his first-half points in the second quarter and Campbell 11 of his 16 bin the second. The defense chimed in forcing two five-second calls and a defenders drew a pair of charges as Mountain Pointe took a 35-23 advantage at the break.

"Our effort is better, and the guys are starting to get it," Windler said. "We had a lot of our focus on Kempton. We did a decent job defending him. It doesn't get any easier. We have to go to Corona (Friday)."

Mountain Pointe's lead did not fall under 10 the rest of the game. The Pride picked up the tempo in the third period and weren't worse for the wear. They led 54-36 heading to the final period. Kempton finished with 17 points. Eight came in the first quarter, but he made just two baskets in the middle two periods as the Broncos searched for some additional scoring help to take the heat off Kempton.